Acceptability and perceived barriers to reactive focal mass drug administration in the context of a malaria elimination program in Magude district, Southern Mozambique: A qualitative study

Carlos Eduardo Cuinhane; Beatriz Galatas; Julia Montaña Lopez; Helder Djive; Hoticha Nhantumbo; Ilda Murato; Francisco Saúte; Pedro Aide; Khátia Munguambe; Neusa Torres

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0283160

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionApril 30, 2022
24 May 2022 Decision Letter - Kabiru Abubakar Gulma, Editor PONE-D-22-12696Acceptability and Perceived Barriers to Reactive Focal Mass Drug Administration in the Context of a Malaria Elimination Program in Magude district, Southern Mozambique: A qualitative studyPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Carlos, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 08 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. 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I suggest you visit the following link for guides on selecting a particular referencing rule of style and being very strict with its format and punctuation (https://libguides.reading.ac.uk/citing-references/referencingstyles). [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. 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Revision 1
13 Jun 2022 Author Response Subject: Submission of the revised manuscript [PONE-D-22-12696] Dear academic editor and reviewers, Thank you for reviewing the manuscript “Acceptability and perceived barriers to reactive focal mass drug administration in the context of a malaria elimination program in Magude district, Southern Mozambique: A qualitative study”. The authors of this manuscript have read the current Instructions for Authors, and agreed to accept the recommedned format. The new manscript version reflects the recommeded format. All authors have also read and agreed upon the submitted version of this manuscript. We believe that the new manuscript will now be suitable for publication format in the PLOS ONE journal. To acdemic editor: 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf Answer: We followed the recommeded format and we used the PLOS ONE tampletes to revised the manuscript. The new manuscript reflect the recommened format. 2. You indicated that you had ethical approval for your study. In your Methods section, please ensure you have also stated whether you obtained consent from parents or guardians of the minors included in the study or whether the research ethics committee or IRB specifically waived the need for their consent. Answer: The research procol was approved by local and national IRB, namely CISM’s institutional ethics committee (CIBS-CISM) and the Mozambican Ministry of Health National Bioethics Committee, and a consent was obtained from parents and guardiens of the minor included in the study. In addition, an assent was obtained from the young adolecents that participated in the study. This information was now added in Methods section, particularly in etihcal consideration section of the new manuscript version. In addition, Table 1 was reformulated for better reading of the presented data. 3. Data availability We agree and we support the policy of data availability, and we recognize the advantages of data availability. We have read PLOS ONE policy and we think that is very important to share the data publicly. However, the qualitative data used to develop this manuscript involve human discourses, and therefore, there is ethical and legal restrictions to sharing the data publicly. The ethical and legal restriction derive from the fact that the protocol and the informed consent and assent approved by the two ethical review boards referred that the data would only be available to the study team, and the protocol established that all information would be confidential. Thus, no participant of the study was informed that the data would be made publicly. Despite this restriction, the data of this study may be available to all researchers upon request to IRBs. In this regard, we would like to update our statement of data availability to as follows: Data Availability: The data of this study were collected under individual-level informed consent and assent after a research protocol was reviewed and approved by CISM’s institutional ethics committee (CIBS-CISM) and the Mozambican Ministry of Health National Bioethics Committee. The informed consent signed by the participants stated that: “data will only be available to the study team”, and the protocol stablished that all information will be confidential, and no data from the data collection forms, nor from audio files will be accessible to anyone outside of CISM. Given this statement approved by the two IRBs, data from this study is available upon request to these institutional review boards: CISM’s institutional ethics committee (sozinho.acacio@manhica.net) or the Mozambican Ministry of Health National Bioethics Committee (jflschwalbach@gmail.com) for researchers who meet the criteria for access to confidential data. 4. We note that you have indicated that data from this study are available upon request. PLOS only allows data to be available upon request if there are legal or ethical restrictions on sharing data publicly. For more information on unacceptable data access restrictions, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. Answer: The answer for this question was already provided in question 3. 5. "PLOS requires an ORCID iD for the corresponding author in Editorial Manager on papers submitted after December 6th, 2016. Please ensure that you have an ORCID iD and that it is validated in Editorial Manager. Answer: The correspondent author already has an ORCID iD, which is 0000-0002-6871-1218. I update this ORCID iD in Editorial Manager page, in Update my information, as recommened. 6.Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information. Anwer: The captions were included for the supporting information as recommended. The supported information include the intergiew guides used for data collection (in both Portguese and English) and Table COREQ. It does not include tables or data mentioned in the manuscript. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0283160.r002
3 Nov 2022 Decision Letter - Hammed Oladeji Mogaji, Editor PONE-D-22-12696R1Acceptability and Perceived Barriers to Reactive Focal Mass Drug Administration in the Context of a Malaria Elimination Program in Magude district, Southern Mozambique: A qualitative studyPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Cuinhane, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. In addition to the minor comments from the reviewers, I realized the authors have used over 30 pages to describe their results. It is important that the authors re-summarize these findings. I have also attached a marked-up revised copy for other comments. Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 18 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-emailutm_source=authorlettersutm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Hammed Mogaji, Ph.D Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #1: (No Response) Reviewer #2: (No Response) ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: The authors have addressed all questions raised in the last review. However, there are few comments I would love authors to address. Abstract 1. "The reactive focal mass drug administration (rfMDA) was implemented July 2017 to January 2020". Authors should include in the abstract at what period between July 2017 to January 2020 was study conducted. Methods 1. In Galatas et al. 2021 in "Community acceptability to antimalarial mass drug administrations in Magude district, Southern Mozambique: A mixed methods study", a population of 48,448 residents, and 10,965 households was provided for a study done during rounds of MDA between November 2015 to February 2017. In this study also conducted in 2017, authors present a population of 63,691inhabitants and 14,583 households. Can authors give explanation to the difference in population number in studies done within same period? 2." The study was undertaken in September 2017 before the start of the reactive surveillance intervention and continued during the first two months after the start of the intervention". a. The above contradicts the initial mention that rFMDA started in July 2017. If the people of Magude district did not benefit from intervention until after September 2017, authors should explain this in the Introduction to support what was mention in the Methods section. Otherwise, corrections should be made in the Methods (Study setting) section to agree with the earlier mention. b. In the Methods section (Study setting), authors should state the duration of study. That is, from September 2017 to when, 2018? 3. "...distributed in 5 Administrative Posts: Magude village, Motaze, Mahele,Panjane and Mapulanguene , and the study covered all these 5 Administrative Posts". In Table 1, some administrative units lacked participants bearing in mind in study purposive sampling was employed. Can authors give reasons why some units lacked particpants? 4. Was the semi-structured interview questionnaire used pre-piloted? Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Evaluation Report Submission for PONE-D-22-12696_R1 Manuscript.docx Attachment Submitted filename: PONE-D-22-12696_R1.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0283160.r003
Revision 2
16 Dec 2022 Author Response Dear editor and reviewers, Thank you for reviewing our manuscript “Acceptability and perceived barriers to reative mass focal drug administraction in the context of malaria elimination program in Magude district. Southen Mozambique: a qualitative study”. The authors of this manuscript have read the comments and suggestions, and agreed to accept the recommedned conditions. All authors have also read and agreed upon the submitted version of the manuscript. To the Editor: In addition to the minor comments from the reviewers, I realized the authors have used over 30 pages to describe their results. It is important that the authors re-summarize these findings. I have also attached a marked-up revised copy for other comments. Answer: The authors re-summarized the findings, and only the essential quotations were left. The new revised manuscript has 28 pages. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Answer: The authors added some data related to financial disclosure, but this did not change the statement at all. We have included the new text of financial disclosure in the cover letter. Answer to the Reviewer #1: - Typographic error in the manuscript: Answer: all typographical errors identified were addressed. Moreover, the authors reviewed the whole manuscripts and corrected all possible grammatical errors. - Results: Please adapt your tables with examples of PLOS ONE tables. Put full stops too at decimal places and not commas. % is written above and not all over the tables. Answer: all tables were revised and formatted according to PLOS ONE tables, as presented in the new revised manuscript. Abstract 1. "The reactive focal mass drug administration (rfMDA) was implemented July 2017 to January 2020". Authors should include in the abstract at what period between July 2017 to January 2020 was study conducted. Answer: The authors included the period that the study was conducted in the abstract, which was between June and September 2017. Methods 1. In Galatas et al. 2021 in "Community acceptability to antimalarial mass drug administrations in Magude district, Southern Mozambique: A mixed methods study", a population of 48,448 residents, and 10,965 households was provided for a study done during rounds of MDA between November 2015 to February 2017. In this study also conducted in 2017, authors present a population of 63,691inhabitants and 14,583 households. Can authors give explanation to the difference in population number in studies done within same period? Answer: Since the start of the project, the CISM conducted annual census in the district, and Galatas et al. (2021) reported the population of the local census of 2016. However, in the paper, we used the census of the National Institute of Statistic (INE) of 2017 rather than local census because the CISM did not conduct the 2017 local census. We therefore, decided to use the census of INE because we think it is updated compared to the 2016 local census. 2." The study was undertaken in September 2017 before the start of the reactive surveillance intervention and continued during the first two months after the start of the intervention". a. The above contradicts the initial mention that rFMDA started in July 2017. If the people of Magude district did not benefit from intervention until after September 2017, authors should explain this in the Introduction to support what was mention in the Methods section. Otherwise, corrections should be made in the Methods (Study setting) section to agree with the earlier mention. Answer: Indeed, there was an error in the text regarding the period of the study and the start of rfMDA intervention. The correct information is that the study was conducted between June and September 2017, while the rfMDA program started in September 2017. We have corrected this information in the revised manuscript. b. In the Methods section (Study setting), authors should state the duration of study. That is, from September 2017 to when, 2018? Answer: There was also an error in this section about the study period. The correct information is: the study was conducted between June and September 2017. 3. "...distributed in 5 Administrative Posts: Magude village, Motaze, Mahele,Panjane and Mapulanguene , and the study covered all these 5 Administrative Posts". In Table 1, some administrative units lacked participants bearing in mind in study purposive sampling was employed. Can authors give reasons why some units lacked particpants? Answer: The study sample size did not cover all participants in all study sites due to unequal distribution of the study participants’ categories and several constraints to accessing the eligible participants. Health professionals and CHWs were not included in some study sites because they were not in all selected communities, and some community leaders were absent during the data collection. Additionally, it was not possible to include adolescents from Mahele and Mapulanguene because the study took place during the school season, and the eligible participants were at schools in different districts. Furthermore, members of the community from Mahele were not included in the sample of semi-structured interviews because they were unavailable due to their agricultural activities. In addition, the lack of accessibility at the selected study sites during the rainy season constrained the eligible participants' access. Moreover, the data collection strategy used also contributed to unequal distribution of the participants in the study setting. The study started by conducting focus group discussions (FGDs) in all study settings and later carrying semi-structured interview. While FGDs were conducted during late months of dry season, the semi-structured interviews were conducted during the start of rainy season, which constrained access to participants in some study settings (Administractive post of Motaze, Mahele and Mapulanguene). we have added an explanation of the sample distribution in the revised manuscript (page 10 of the revised manuscript with track changes). 4. Was the semi-structured interview questionnaire used pre-piloted? Answer: Yes, all guides were pre-piloted as started in line 205, page 11 of the revised manuscript with track changes. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0283160.r004
3 Mar 2023 Decision Letter - José Luiz Fernandes Vieira, Editor Acceptability and Perceived Barriers to Reactive Focal Mass Drug Administration in the Context of a Malaria Elimination Program in Magude district, Southern Mozambique: A qualitative study PONE-D-22-12696R2 Dear Dr.Carlos Eduardo Cuinhane We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, José Luiz Fernandes Vieira Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: All comments raised have been addressed by authors. I recommend the acceptance of the manuscript. Thank you Reviewer #2: This is an interesting and insightful study. There is great improvement from the first correction. However, few typographical errors need to be corrected. Additionally, in the results section/discussion, the authors need to be specific and include the percentages (Numbers) and discuss their findings. References should be revisited and adapted to suit PLOS ONE format. ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No ******** Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Marked for revision PONE-D-22-12696_R2.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0283160.r005
Formally Accepted
24 Mar 2023 Acceptance Letter - José Luiz Fernandes Vieira, Editor PONE-D-22-12696R2 Acceptability and perceived barriers to reactive focal mass drug administration in the context of a malaria elimination program in Magude district, Southern Mozambique: A qualitative study Dear Dr. Cuinhane: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. José Luiz Fernandes Vieira Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0283160.r006

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