PONE-D-23-21989Geographic information system and information visualization: past successes and future challenges in capacity building for the World Health Organization’s African regionPLOS ONE

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PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

• Please review and consider all the comments and suggestions by both reviewers to provide more clarity and context within the manuscript.
• Both reviewers have also highlighted the focus on Polio in the current draft and the need to revise the title and text to reflect the aim of this review as stated in Lines 92-95? Is the manuscript about GIS and Polio alone or other diseases as well? You may revise the title of the manuscript accordingly showing "past" Polio Successes." and challenges "post covid" for GIS utilization for other disease outbreaks. Any examples of how the GIS system has supported any other diseases? (how is the AFRO GIS Centre addressing these ongoing public health needs?)
• The current title also includes "capacity building". The conclusion is specific for Polio and GPEI, is this capacity building for WHO GIS Polio teams or for country field staff for Polio and other diseases as well?
• In line with the recommendation on the title, please update the abstract and the conclusion to ensure alignments. Note also that the conclusion only mentions Polio and nothing about other diseases outbreaks.
• Lines 169-171 documents polio vaccination by WHO AFRO GIS teams? Does the AFRO GIS deploy vaccination teams or is this by the teams recruited by the Governments? Is there a reference for this?
• The section on use of GIS beyond Polio (Lines 245-276) is a clear example of Polio transition in action. Please include a line or two on Polio transition.
• Please also revise to correct sentences and punctuations as may be required for consistency E.g.:  Line 215 & 21: Train (Orient) participants "on" while Line 219: Train participants "in".

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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: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: N/A

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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

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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

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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: In summary this manuscript outlines the development and expansion of the use of GIS systems in the African WHO region for primarily polio eradication. This is a very important technological development both for polio eradication and future disease surveillance and intervention monitoring. The manuscript provides narrative of the progress to date, highlighting particular GIS gaps (i.e. it is not a scientific research article). However, to a reader not involved in this GIS network, more details are required to understand the processes. The authors also present data from a 2019 survey on national GID capacity but more details are required as to who was surveyed and whether follow-up data will be collected to measure progress. It would be much clearer if different visualisations were presented for a particular outbreak that the network has worked on e.g., The authors conclude the GIS system was important for achieving certification of WPV1 in the region, it would be helpful to see some examples of the different GIS layers that contributed to this.

Minor comments:

Abstract:

‘Currently, 95% of reported polio cases are in under-vaccinated populations’ it is not clear what you mean by this given many children will not have received type 2 OPV since 2016.

Introduction

Line 49, I think you mean WPV1 free?

Line 66, By vaccine-associated do you mean vaccine-derived?

Fig 1 why do you choose this specific time period?

The introduction would benefit with a few sentences describing withdrawal of type 2 from OPV in 2016 and the following declining immunity across the region, facilitating cVDPV2 spread. A little more detail required on the rollout of nOPV2 would help the reader.

Figure 2 – Requires more details in the legend – how is the data obtained? Which part of Nigeria is shown?

Paragraph 114 – ‘Components of the WHO AFRO geographic information system’. This section is hard to follow. Perhaps include a diagram to show if any of these platforms interact? More description required to understand what ISS, eSurv and AVADAR are – how do they interact with other GIS platforms? Perhaps show an example from each? It would be helpful to highlight in the diagram what new spatial data is the GIS Centre helping to collect compared to visualising standard surveillance data. It is not clear what PowerBI is used for and what ARC GIS is used for.

Figure 3– what data is going into this dashboard? How are nomadic populations ‘tracked’ it could be interpreted as unethical tracking of certain people so please explain.

Figure 4 – what is the y axis? % missing or having. Please provide more details on the survey – questions in the appendix? Who participated?

Train the trainer – who are these trainers, how are they located across countries? Who are those being trained?

Line 232 – population and demographic data – based on what data source? Most recent census or other?

Line 262 Consolidated health facility master list – this is a very exciting development. Is it possible to report on how complete this database is? What are the barriers to obtaining more data etc? What proportion of countries have supplied data….

IPV – has the GIS Centre been involved in evaluating the (few) IPV campaigns?

Reviewer #2: Authors should align the title, the main text and the conclusion and recommendations of this paper. The paper in its current form seems to be too much focused on polio even though its intention is to highlight the application ion WHO AFRO GIS tool in prevention and control of not only polio but other diseases.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Attachments

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Submitted filename: PLOS ONE GIS.docx

Geographic information system and information visualization capacity building: successful polio eradication and current and future challenges in the COVID-19 era for the World Health Organization’s African region

PONE-D-23-21989R1

Dear Mr.Kipterer

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.

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Kind regards,

Terna Ignatius Nomhwange, MD,DTM&H,MBA

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

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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

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

Reviewer #2: N/A

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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: Yes

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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

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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: (No Response)

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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: No

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