Prevalence of Hepatitis C viral infection in Ghana: A systematic review and meta-analysis protocol

Peter Kwabena Fosu; Gill ten Hoor; Charles Ampong Adjei; Fidelis Atibila; Robert A. C. Ruiter

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0321483

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionNovember 21, 2024
21 Nov 2024 Author Response https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0321483.r001
20 Feb 2025 Decision Letter - Yury E Khudyakov, Editor PONE-D-24-49434Prevalence of Hepatitis C Viral Infection in Ghana: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis ProtocolPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Fosu, 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. ============================== Your manuscript was reviewed by two experts in the field. Both found some problems in your submission, which require your attention. Please consider the attached comments and provide point-by-point responses. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Apr 06 2025 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 . 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Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information. 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 If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references.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 If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.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. Does the manuscript provide a valid rationale for the proposed study, with clearly identified and justified research questions? The research question outlined is expected to address a valid academic problem or topic and contribute to the base of knowledge in the field. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Is the protocol technically sound and planned in a manner that will lead to a meaningful outcome and allow testing the stated hypotheses? The manuscript should describe the methods in sufficient detail to prevent undisclosed flexibility in the experimental procedure or analysis pipeline, including sufficient outcome-neutral conditions (e.g. necessary controls, absence of floor or ceiling effects) to test the proposed hypotheses and a statistical power analysis where applicable. As there may be aspects of the methodology and analysis which can only be refined once the work is undertaken, authors should outline potential assumptions and explicitly describe what aspects of the proposed analyses, if any, are exploratory. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Is the methodology feasible and described in sufficient detail to allow the work to be replicable? Descriptions of methods and materials in the protocol should be reported in sufficient detail for another researcher to reproduce all experiments and analyses. The protocol should describe the appropriate controls, sample size calculations, and replication needed to ensure that the data are robust and reproducible. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Have the authors described where all data underlying the findings will be made available when the study is complete? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception, at the time of publication. 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: No 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 and, if applicable, provide comments about issues authors must address before this protocol can be accepted for publication. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about research or publication ethics. You may also provide optional suggestions and comments to authors that they might find helpful in planning their study. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: The systematic review and meta-analysis protocol for HCV prevalence in Ghana is well written and highlights the need for another prevalence analysis regarding HCV infection in the country. While there was a multi-centre corss-sectional study for HCV seroprevalence, testing, and treatment capacity in public health facilities in Ghana, 2016-2021 which represents the recent HCV prevalence across different populations and regions, the research question for this protocol is very gereral. I would like to know if the research question would be more specific, such as 2016 to 2024, general population vs sub/key-population, or country vs regional prevalence analysis. Other than that, I wish all the authers the best for this systematic review and meta-analysis process. Reviewer #2: The protocol is written fairly well, in line with the standard PRISMA guidelines. Some comments for consideration: 1. Briefly describe the expected outcome of the systematic review and meta-analysis in the abstract. 2. It might help to include a sample search string in an appendix or supplementary file. 3. I would prefer to see a brief discussion section in the protocol that addresses the importance of the topic, potential limitations, and the expected outcome of the review. ****** 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? 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Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0321483.r002
Revision 1
25 Feb 2025 Author Response Responds to Editorial comments: 1. We appreciate the editor’s comment. We have ensured that the manuscript meets PLOS ONE’s style requirements. This adjustment can be seen throughout the manuscript. 2. Given that this is a study protocol, we have no data to share at the moment. However, we will make available all the data following the systematic review. This is well captured on page 4. 3. Thank you. All supporting files have been named accordingly, including in text citations. This can be seen throughout the manuscript 4. We have reviewed all the references and they are well structured according to the PLOS ONE’s referencing style. This can be seen on pages 5 to 8. Responds to Reviewer 1: 1. We appreciate the first reviewer’s positive comment. 2. We appreciate the reviewer’s comment. The manuscript already had the search year range captured on page 6. It reads “There will be a search for articles reporting on the prevalence of hepatitis C in Ghana from 2016 to 2024”. However, we have expanded the research question to include the determination of hepatitis C burden among various sub-groups, including blood donors, pregnant women, sex workers, injection drug users, men who have sex with men, people living with HIV, and people with liver diseases. In addition, the extent of variations of hepatitis C prevalence across the 16 regions of Ghana will be examined. The adjustment can be seen on page 5. Responds to Reviewer 2: 1. Thank you. We have made an adjustment based on the reviewer’s comment in the manuscript. It now reads “Findings will contribute to the design of public health response towards hepatitis C elimination in Ghana”. This adjustment can be seen on page 3. 2. We appreciate the reviewer’s comment. Although the search strings were captured on page 7 of the manuscript, we have been more explicit and this adjustment could be seen on page 7. 3. We appreciate the reviewer’s comment. Importantly, the relevance of the review is well discussed in the introductory section of the manuscript. Excerpt reads “Considering that Ghana is targeting micro-elimination (i.e. focusing intervention on high-risk and vulnerable populations) of HCV, current data on the disease prevalence is crucial for evidence-based policymaking, public health research, and program direction. We have also added the expected outcome of the review which also reads “Findings will contribute to the design of public health response towards hepatitis C elimination in Ghana”. We are convinced that this brief discussion is enough for the protocol considering that the actual review report will present more broadly the requested details. This adjustment can be seen on page 3 and 4 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0321483.r003
7 Mar 2025 Decision Letter - Yury E Khudyakov, Editor Prevalence of Hepatitis C Viral Infection in Ghana: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocol PONE-D-24-49434R1 Dear Dr. Fosu, 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, Yury E Khudyakov, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0321483.r004
Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Yury E Khudyakov, Editor PONE-D-24-49434R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Fosu, 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. Yury E Khudyakov Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0321483.r005

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