PONE-D-22-26018The prevalence of schistosomiasis among primary school aged children (6-13 years) in the Okavango Delta in Botswana.PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Phaladze,

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 Jan 21 2023 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-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Clement Ameh Yaro, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

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

2. Thank you for stating the following in the Competing Interests section: 

"The authors have read the journal’s policy and have the following competing interests: LM is a paid employee of Quality Anchor Consultants PTY.LTD, but was not affiliated with the company at the time this study was conducted. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products associated with this research to declare. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.”

Please confirm that this does not alter your adherence to all PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, by including the following statement: "This does not alter our adherence to  PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.” (as detailed online in our guide for authors http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/competing-interests).  If there are restrictions on sharing of data and/or materials, please state these. Please note that we cannot proceed with consideration of your article until this information has been declared. 

Please include your updated Competing Interests statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf.

3. Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript: 

"This research was commissioned by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Global Health Research programme (16/136/33) using UK aid from the UK Government. The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care."

We note that you have provided funding information that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. 

Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows: 

"This study was funded by the National Institute of Health Research (Grant Number: 16/136/33 NIHR). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.”

Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf.

4. We note that Figures 1 and 2 in your submission contain [map/satellite] images which may be copyrighted. All PLOS content is published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which means that the manuscript, images, and Supporting Information files will be freely available online, and any third party is permitted to access, download, copy, distribute, and use these materials in any way, even commercially, with proper attribution. For these reasons, we cannot publish previously copyrighted maps or satellite images created using proprietary data, such as Google software (Google Maps, Street View, and Earth). For more information, see our copyright guidelines: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/licenses-and-copyright.

We require you to either (1) present written permission from the copyright holder to publish these figures specifically under the CC BY 4.0 license, or (2) remove the figures from your submission:

a. You may seek permission from the original copyright holder of Figures 1 and 2 to publish the content specifically under the CC BY 4.0 license.  

We recommend that you contact the original copyright holder with the Content Permission Form (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=7c09/content-permission-form.pdf) and the following text:

“I request permission for the open-access journal PLOS ONE to publish XXX under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CCAL) CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Please be aware that this license allows unrestricted use and distribution, even commercially, by third parties. Please reply and provide explicit written permission to publish XXX under a CC BY license and complete the attached form.”

Please upload the completed Content Permission Form or other proof of granted permissions as an ""Other"" file with your submission.

In the figure caption of the copyrighted figure, please include the following text: “Reprinted from [ref] under a CC BY license, with permission from [name of publisher], original copyright [original copyright year].”

b. If you are unable to obtain permission from the original copyright holder to publish these figures under the CC BY 4.0 license or if the copyright holder’s requirements are incompatible with the CC BY 4.0 license, please either i) remove the figure or ii) supply a replacement figure that complies with the CC BY 4.0 license. Please check copyright information on all replacement figures and update the figure caption with source information. If applicable, please specify in the figure caption text when a figure is similar but not identical to the original image and is therefore for illustrative purposes only.

The following resources for replacing copyrighted map figures may be helpful:

USGS National Map Viewer (public domain): http://viewer.nationalmap.gov/viewer/

The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth (public domain): http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/clickmap/

Maps at the CIA (public domain): https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html and https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/cia-maps-publications/index.html

NASA Earth Observatory (public domain): http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/

Landsat: http://landsat.visibleearth.nasa.gov/

USGS EROS (Earth Resources Observatory and Science (EROS) Center) (public domain): http://eros.usgs.gov/#

Natural Earth (public domain): http://www.naturalearthdata.com/

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. 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: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. 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

**********

4. 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: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. 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: Reviewer’s Comments________________________________________

Title: The prevalence of schistosomiasis among primary school aged children (6-13 years) in the Okavango Delta in Botswana

Manuscript Number: PONE-D-22-26018

Overall comments

The paper is of interest to schistosomiasis control program of Botswana as it provides information on re-emerging of the disease after the termination of the Botswana national schistosomiasis control program in 1993. Had the snail survey been conducted along the parasitological survey, the study would have more informed the schistosomiasis control program of the country.

The primary objective/purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence and intensity of schistosomiasis among the study participants. The title also reflects this to some extent. The paper should also be structured accordingly in all sections, i.e., presenting prevalence and intensity first, followed by participants’ knowledge of schistosomiasis, and so on.

Although the paper reports on important information it is not well structured and written. Hence, it needs substantial revision to bring it to the acceptable level.

Specific comments

Title:

It is suggested that the term “schistosomiasis” in the title be replaced with “intestinal and urogenital schistosomiasis”. Additionally, the authors need to replace the phrase “...primary school aged children (6-13 years)...” in the title and throughout in the document be replaced with “...school-age children...”

Abstract:

� Page 1,Background: provide purpose/objective of the study

� Page 1,Methods: more details required for methods used for stool and urine examination, as well as for statistical analysis of the data.

� Page 3, lines 46- 48: Recommendation should be preceded by summary of the main findings.

Page 7: It would be appropriate to create the heading “Study area and population” with which the method section begins.

Page 7, lines 118 - 121: It is not necessary to outline specific objectives in an article as it is not a proposal. It is usual to provide purpose /objective statement only.

Page 9, lines 164 & 165: For individuals who have not reached the legal age of consent, you only need consent from parents or legal guardians. Individuals who have not reached the legal age of consent are not expected to complete the assent form but only give oral assent.

Page 10, lines 183 & 184: The statement that reads “Total Urine (n=1603) and stool (n=1404) samples collected from school aged children from all the selected schools to determine the prevalence and intensity of schistosomiasis.” lacks clarity and needs to be re-phrased to read “A total of 1603 urine and 1404 stool samples were collected from school age children in the selected schools to determine the prevalence and intensity of schistosomiasis.” This is just one example, otherwise there are many other such vague statements for which the paper needs considerable editorial revision.

Page 11, lines 185 & 186: For examination of S. haematobium infection, WHO recommends urine filtration method. It is not clear why the authors used additional centrifugation. The authors need to clarify this. The authors also need to re-write the urine and stool examination methods and cite appropriate references.

Page 14, Table 2: vertical lines in the table should be removed.

Page 19, Table 5:

� The figures in column “S. haematobium” add up to 83, and not to 156.

� It is not clear why “Ascaris/Taenia” is in the table.

� Show STH identified in the footnote.

Page 20, Table 6:

� It is not clear why “Ascaris/Taenia” is in the table.

� Show STH identified in the footnote.

Page 21, Table 7: The number of S. haematobium infected cases were 86(83 in Table 5 & 3 in Table 6). On the other hand, the authors have written the number of S. haematobium infected cases as 41. The discrepancy should be reconciled.

Page 22, Table 8: The number infected with S. mansoni was 3 while the intensity of infection was presented for 1. Here correction is needed.

Page 24, line 412: “S. Haematobium” on this line and in other section should be corrected as “S. haematobium”

Page 27, lines 464 & 465: The statement “Our data provide baseline information regarding infection status of Schistosoma and STH among school aged children living along the Okavango Delta.” is a significant statement and should be replaced with a summary of the findings.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript provides interesting data at a time when the activities on Neglected Tropical Diseases is aiming for a global elimination. Such situation and existing conditions require to be highlighted. The data provides vividly that there are missing gaps in the whole approach in the road to elimination as depicted by the situiation in the Okavango region. This may not be an isolated existing condition but could be prevailing in other regions in the sub Saharan region. I have identified some sections that require proper presentation in conformity to the generally required for publications.

1. I suggest that the figures given in all the tables should have an integer for example where it is given as .40 % it should be 0.40%. This suggestion is for all the presnetation in the manuscript.

2. Line 66 the reference need to be written in a proper way instead of the listed names. Usually it is the only first author as (Hajissa et al., 2018)

3. Line 85 should read as : Other studies conducted in Ethiopia...

4. line 87: Conducted in Zimbabwe and Kenya....

5. line 183: Total urine (n=1603 and stool ...

6. line 187: ova indicated a positive diagnosis of S. heamatobium ...

7. The methods should not be listed as points but contained in a discriptive way.

8. Lines 349 and 359 the Genus and species names: S. heamatobium and S. mansoni..

9. Line 390 grammar: who had a family member who previously suffered ....

10. Remove information between 409 - 422 as it is repetition of lines 394 -396.

11. Line 412: S. haematobium

12. Lines 433 and 436: reconstruction of the sentence. sustain control of schistosomiasis transmission...

13. Line 461. COVID-19 restriction

References section require proper presentation.

Ref 506, 509: The author is the same Appleton CC or Appleton C?

ref 527: Presentation of the author is not clear if, B Doumbo,OK

Care should be taken in the use of reference manager where the format has changed fromn Ref 593 - 626.

**********

6. 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: Yes: Berhanu Erko

Reviewer #2: Yes: Professor Takafira Mduluza

**********

[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.

The prevalence of urogenital and intestinal schistosomiasis among school age children (6-13 years) in the Okavango Delta in Botswana.

PONE-D-22-26018R1

Dear Dr. Phaladze,

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,

Clement Ameh Yaro, Ph.D

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

**********

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

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: 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

**********

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

**********

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: (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: Yes: Berhanu Erko

**********

<quillbot-extension-portal></quillbot-extension-portal>