Facilitating the access to HIV testing at lower costs: “To the laboratory without prescription” (ALSO), a pilot intervention to expand HIV testing through medical laboratories in France

Karen Champenois; Victoire Sawras; Pamela Ngoh; Philippe Bouvet de la Maisonneuve; Julie Valbousquet; Margot Annequin; Yoana Gatseva; David Michels; Nathalie Lydié; Charlotte Maguet; Elodie Aïna; Erwann Le Hô; Eve Plenel; Irit Touitou; Sylvie Deuffic-Burban; France Lert; Pascal Pugliese; the ALSO group

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0309754

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMay 24, 2023
18 Mar 2024 Decision Letter - Prakash Shakya, Editor PONE-D-23-11875Facilitating the access to HIV testing at lower costs: “To the laboratory without prescription” (ALSO), a pilot intervention to expand HIV testing through medical laboratories in FrancePLOS ONE Dear Dr. Champenois, 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 May 02 2024 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. 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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 in your Funding Statement: “The ALSO study was supported by Santé publique France (no grant number, https://www.santepubliquefrance.fr) and ANRS MIE (ECTZ118440, https://www.anrs.fr/). The organisations Vers Paris sans Sida, Objectif sida zero and Inserm received the funds. No author has directly received the funds. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.” Please provide an amended statement that declares all the funding or sources of support (whether external or internal to your organization) received during this study, as detailed online in our guide for authors at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submit-now. Please also include the statement “There was no additional external funding received for this study.” in your updated Funding Statement. Please include your amended Funding Statement within your cover letter. We will change the online submission form on your behalf. 3. In this instance it seems there may be acceptable restrictions in place that prevent the public sharing of your minimal data. However, in line with our goal of ensuring long-term data availability to all interested researchers, PLOS’ Data Policy states that authors cannot be the sole named individuals responsible for ensuring data access (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-acceptable-data-sharing-methods). Data requests to a non-author institutional point of contact, such as a data access or ethics committee, helps guarantee long term stability and availability of data. Providing interested researchers with a durable point of contact ensures data will be accessible even if an author changes email addresses, institutions, or becomes unavailable to answer requests. Before we proceed with your manuscript, please also provide non-author contact information (phone/email/hyperlink) for a data access committee, ethics committee, or other institutional body to which data requests may be sent. If no institutional body is available to respond to requests for your minimal data, please consider if there any institutional representatives who did not collaborate in the study, and are not listed as authors on the manuscript, who would be able to hold the data and respond to external requests for data access? If so, please provide their contact information (i.e., email address). Please also provide details on how you will ensure persistent or long-term data storage and availability. 4. One of the noted authors is a group or consortium [ALSO group]. In addition to naming the author group, please list the individual authors and affiliations within this group in the acknowledgments section of your manuscript. Please also indicate clearly a lead author for this group along with a contact email address. 5. 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. [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: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: I Don't Know ****** 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: No ****** 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: Yes 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: Excellent job. My only suggestions are: (1) describe (in methodology, page 5) how long it took to get the results after testing (at ALSO testing sites); and (2) on page 11, in results (lines 251 and 252), give any significant differences between the Paris labs (108/158) that performed ALSO vs those that did not, and the STI clinics (5/11). Reviewer #2: General comments: This was a study assessing the impact of a program named « Au Labo sans ordo (ALSO) - To the laboratory without prescription » performed in two major French cities, Paris and Nice, which have the highest annual rate of HIV diagnoses and prevalence of undiagnosed cases. The program consisted in allowing patients to go to any laboratory during opening hours without a prescription and asking for free HIV testing (laboratories were reimbursed by the national health insurance), without restriction, without appointment, and without pre-test counseling. They found that about 7% of HIV test were performed through the ASLO program during the study period and that the population attending this program was not the same as in STI clinics or as in prescribed HIV testing as it reached in particular heterosexual men with more than 2 partners a year, highlighting the complementarity of the program in HIV testing offer. The positivity rate was similar as in prescription test but lower than in STI clinics. Moreover, they found that the cost per HIV test was the lowest in ALSO and that the costs to obtain one positive test were lower than for prescribed test and in STI clinic and close from community-based testing where the HIV prevalence is the highest. The article is clear, well written and well discussed. The cost analysis is a significant addition to the study. The study and the program are of public health interest and offer perspectives in improving access to HIV testing. The present manuscript will be of interest for the Plos One readers. I have a few comments Major: - Did this program concerned only adults ? I guess that yess but it should be indicated. - Do the authors have any information about how many positive patients effectively went to their GP or to the dedicated navigation platform then to an HIV clinic ? - Should a multinomial logistic regression be performed rather than two different binomial logistic regressions (also vs. prescribed and also vs. STI)? - Does the authors have any information about redundancy in HIV testing (e.g. patients using ALSO and STI clinic)? - Is there in the literature any similar approach as the ALSO program? If no, it should be stated. If yes, programs and results should be compared. - Authors should highlight the main limitations of their study alongside the strengths (impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the evaluation for the programme, less laboratories collecting a questionnaire in the second study period, ) Minor: - Line 31: indicate in which year 51% of newly diagnosed HIV patients had CD4<350 - Line 37: indicate that tests can be anonymous ****** 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: John Nelson, PhD, CNS, CPNP Reviewer #2: Yes: Maxime Hentzien ******** [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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0309754.r001
Revision 1
31 May 2024 Author Response Facilitating the access to HIV testing at lower costs: “To the laboratory without prescription” (ALSO), a pilot intervention to expand HIV testing through medical laboratories in France Authors ‘response to comments Review Comments to the Author We thank the reviewers for their careful reviewing of our manuscript and their valuable comments that helped us to improve the manuscript. You will find below a point by point response to reviewers’ comments. Reviewer #1 Excellent job. My only suggestions are: (1) describe (in methodology, page 5) how long it took to get the results after testing (at ALSO testing sites); In labs, regardless of the ALSO offer or prescribed test, people can obtain the results on the same day as the sample or the next day if they come at the end of the day. When the result is negative, they access to it online. When it is positive, the biologist called the patient by phone to invite him/her to come to the laboratory for the confirmatory analysis on a second blood sample. We cleared the text as follows: L94-95: “Results were generally available the same day.” (2) on page 11, in results (lines 251 and 252), give any significant differences between the Paris labs (108/158) that performed ALSO vs those that did not, and the STI clinics (5/11). Offering ALSO was not optional for laboratories in Paris and the Alpes Maritimes since the program was decided by the Health Insurance and then part of the regular provision of HIV testing. In Paris, only 68% of the laboratories reported monthly HIV testing data during the whole 18 month-period. Very few of them did not report any information. We compared the number of ALSO tests reported by laboratories to the aggregated number of tests reimbursed by health insurance (comparisons were possible on aggregated data only). The numbers were a little different but trends were similar which makes us confident in our results. 6 of the 11 Parisian STI clinics did not provide activity data because of important disruptions of their organisation due to the covid crisis. Reviewer #2 General comments: This was a study assessing the impact of a program named « Au Labo sans ordo (ALSO) - To the laboratory without prescription » performed in two major French cities, Paris and Nice, which have the highest annual rate of HIV diagnoses and prevalence of undiagnosed cases. The program consisted in allowing patients to go to any laboratory during opening hours without a prescription and asking for free HIV testing (laboratories were reimbursed by the national health insurance), without restriction, without appointment, and without pre-test counseling. They found that about 7% of HIV test were performed through the ASLO program during the study period and that the population attending this program was not the same as in STI clinics or as in prescribed HIV testing as it reached in particular heterosexual men with more than 2 partners a year, highlighting the complementarity of the program in HIV testing offer. The positivity rate was similar as in prescription test but lower than in STI clinics. Moreover, they found that the cost per HIV test was the lowest in ALSO and that the costs to obtain one positive test were lower than for prescribed test and in STI clinic and close from community-based testing where the HIV prevalence is the highest. The article is clear, well written and well discussed. The cost analysis is a significant addition to the study. The study and the program are of public health interest and offer perspectives in improving access to HIV testing. The present manuscript will be of interest for the Plos One readers. I have a few comments Major: 1) Did this program concerned only adults? I guess that yes but it should be indicated. In France, HIV testing is available to minors aged 15 or over without parental consent but in the presence of a trusted adult chosen by the minor (the trusted adult can be a relative, a friend or a member of testing staff; Articles L.1111-5 et L1111-5-1 du Code de la santé publique). However, the exemption from parental authority does not apply to the biologist, the ALSO offer is available to people aged from 18 years old. This has been added in the manuscript as follows: L88: “The ALSO programme was open to all potential users in France, aged 18 or over.” 2) Do the authors have any information about how many positive patients effectively went to their GP or to the dedicated navigation platform then to an HIV clinic? As described lines 283-87, 85 ALSO users received a positive result, only 30 of them wished to use the navigation platform. Navigation does not yet exist in France for HIV testing and was offered as part of the ALSO program. Usually patients with a positive test are referred to the physician who issued the prescription or make an appointment directly at the hospital HIV clinic of their choice. Some laboratory staffs, most often in Paris where HIV epidemic is the highest in France, reported not using the navigation platform because they used to refer patient who tested positive for HIV to the nearest HIV clinic. Unfortunately, we have no information on actual linkage to GP or HIV care for these positive individuals. We added this information as a limitation in the discussion part (lines 470-73) Another limitation is that we have no information about linkage to care for 65% of the patients who received a positive ALSO test result. In order to respect the confidentiality of the tested people, we were not able to collect this data for the people who chose not to use the navigation platform. 3) Should a multinomial logistic regression be performed rather than two different binomial logistic regressions (also vs. prescribed and also vs. STI)? The estimates of several logistic regressions or a multinomial logistic regression are the same, with the difference that the standard errors are a little larger in the case of several logistic regressions [Agresti A. Logit Models for Multinomial Responses. Categorical Data Analysis. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2002. pp. 267–313. doi:10.1002/0471249688.ch7]. We chose to do separate logistic models despite the increase in standard errors, because: - We didn’t want to compare people with a prescribed test and STI clinic users who we knew they were different - We wanted to express the probability of using HIV testing in comparison to other screening methods (HIV testing on prescription or in STI clinics are and will remain the norm). In presenting the results of a multinomial logistic regression, we were obliged to put ALSO users as a reference category and therefore to present the probability of using prescribed tests or an STIs clinics compared to ALSO users. For the reviewer’s information, the results of the multinomial analysis are presented at the end of the attached file “ReviewerCommentAnswer” . 4) Does the authors have any information about redundancy in HIV testing (e.g. patients using ALSO and STI clinic)? We did not have exactly these data. However, with the cross-sectional study to characterize the HIV testing users, we can know the number of HIV tests carried out in the previous 12 months and the HIV testing facility of the last HIV test. The table below presented these data by HIV testing offer. The majority of users used the same HIV testing offer for both tests, otherwise the laboratory with a medical prescription. ALSO offer Prescribed test STI clinic Number of users who stated having carried out ≥2 HIV tests in the last 12 months (% of the total users) 30 (10.2%) 277 (13.0%) 103 (14.5%) Facility of the last HIV testing In a lab, with a medical prescription 8 (32%) 231 (88%) 23 (24%) In a lab, without a medical prescription 13 (52%)* 13 (5%) 9 (10%)** STI clinic 4 (16%) 15 (5%) 55 (59%) Other facility 0 5 (2%) 7 (7%) Missing data 5 13 9 * Among the 13 users who stated having carried out their last HIV test in a laboratory without a medical prescription, 11 had taken their last HIV test in the 6 prior months so it might already be an ALSO test. ** Among the 9 users who stated having carried out their last HIV test in a laboratory without a medical prescription, 7 had taken their last HIV test in the 6 prior months so it might already be an ALSO test. We chose not to add these results to the manuscript because there remains some uncertainty due to the small number of respondents and a possible recall bias. 5) Is there in the literature any similar approach as the ALSO program? If no, it should be stated. If yes, programs and results should be compared. To our knowledge, no similar approach to the ALSO offer was published. This type of offer depends on the organization of the healthcare system and the accessibility of the different testing provisions in each single country. We added this paragraph in the discussion part (lines 431-5) To our knowledge, there is no HIV testing offer similar to ALSO published in the literature; however, the implementation of this type of programmes depends on the organization and accessibility of the healthcare system, and in particular, the different testing provisions, of each country. In France, laboratories are places of proximity with free access for people whatever the medical analysis they must be carried out. This makes them places of choice for evaluating a new HIV testing offer. 6) Authors should highlight the main limitations of their study alongside the strengths (impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the evaluation for the programme, less laboratories collecting a questionnaire in the second study period, ) We thank the reviewer for highlighting this point. We added a paragraph addressing the limitations at the end of the discussion part (lines 462-73) The study has some limitations. As already addressed above, the crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic disturbed the implementation of the experimentation and the data collection. Laboratories were overwhelmed by the COVID testing and several of them did not participate in the second cross-sectional survey. To estimate the selection bias that could result, the characteristics of ALSO participants of the 2019 cross-sectional survey were compared according to the participation of the laboratory in one or two surveys. More Parisian laboratories did not participate in the second surveys that implied that participants were less likely to be born abroad or live in another department than those of the testing. No other differences were highlighted suggesting a limited selection bias. Another limitation is that we have no information about linkage to care for 65% of the patients who received a positive ALSO test result. In order to respect the confidentiality of the tested people, we were not able to collect this data for the people who chose not to use the navigation platform. Minor: 7) Line 31: indicate in which year 51% of newly diagnosed HIV patients had CD4<350 According to the 2020 ECDC data, 51% of diagnoses with CD4 available CD4 counts were late. We did not update this data despite availability of 2022 data because, it is related the study period. We added this information in the text (line 31). 8) Line 37: indicate that tests can be anonymous Done 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. The manuscript was edited as recommended. Corresponding changes (changes in statements position or the police of the titles) were not highlighted in the revised version. 2. Thank you for stating in your Funding Statement: “The ALSO study was supported by Santé publique France (no grant number, https://www.santepubliquefrance.fr) and ANRS MIE (ECTZ118440, https://www.anrs.fr/). The organisations Vers Paris sans Sida, Objectif sida zero and Inserm received the funds. No author has directly received the funds. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.” Please provide an amended statement that declares all the funding or sources of support (whether external or internal to your organization) received during this study, as detailed online in our guide for authors at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submit-now. Please also include the statement “There was no additional external funding received for this study.” in your updated Funding Statement. The funding statement was edited as recommended. Please include your amended Funding Statement within your cover letter. We will change the online submission form on your behalf. 3. In this instance it seems there may be acceptable restrictions in place that prevent the public sharing of your minimal data. However, in line with our goal of ensuring long-term data availability to all interested researchers, PLOS’ Data Policy states that authors cannot be the sole named individuals responsible for ensuring data access (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-acceptable-data-sharing-methods). Data requests to a non-author institutional point of contact, such as a data access or ethics committee, helps guarantee long term stability and availability of data. Providing interested researchers with a durable point of contact ensures data will be accessible even if an author changes email addresses, institutions, or becomes unavailable to answer requests. Before we proceed with your manuscript, please also provide non-author contact information (phone/email/hyperlink) for a data access committee, ethics committee, or other institutional body to which data requests may be sent. If no institutional body is available to respond to requests for your minimal data, please consider if there any institutional representatives who did not collaborate in the study, and are not listed as authors on the manuscript, who would be able to hold the data and respond to external requests for data access? If so, please provide their contact information (i.e., email address). Please also provide details on how you will ensure persistent or long-term data storage and availability. Data collected cannot be shared publicly because of their sensitive nature and permission for public use of the data was not obtained from the participants. Data are stored on a secure server suitable for hosting health data. Activity and user data are available upon request to the corresponding author or to the data protection officer of the Nice hospital: dpo@chu-nice.fr for researchers who meet the criteria for access to confidential data, after receiving an approval from the ALSO study group. This statement was added in the manuscript lines 533-540. 4. One of the noted authors is a group or consortium [ALSO group]. In addition to naming the author group, please list the individual authors and affiliations within this group in the acknowledgments section of your manuscript. Please also indicate clearly a lead author for this group along with a contact email address. The lead author for the ALSO group is Pascal Pugliese, pugliese.p@chu-nice.fr This has been added in the acknowlegment section. 5. 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. The references have been reviewed carefully. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: PlosOne_ReviewerCommentAnswer_20240516.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0309754.r002
19 Aug 2024 Decision Letter - Prakash Shakya, Editor Facilitating the access to HIV testing at lower costs: “To the laboratory without prescription” (ALSO), a pilot intervention to expand HIV testing through medical laboratories in France PONE-D-23-11875R1 Dear Dr. Champenois, 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 will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, 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, Prakash Shakya 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 #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 #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? 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 #2: No ****** 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 #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 #2: The authors rigorously adressed all my comments. Thank you ...................................................... ****** 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 #2: Yes: Maxime Hentzien ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0309754.r003
Formally Accepted
27 Aug 2024 Acceptance Letter - Prakash Shakya, Editor PONE-D-23-11875R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Champenois, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset If revisions are needed, the production department will contact you directly to resolve them. If no revisions are needed, you will receive an email when the publication date has been set. At this time, we do not offer pre-publication proofs to authors during production of the accepted work. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few weeks to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, 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 customercare@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. Prakash Shakya Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0309754.r004

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