Stakeholders’ Perspectives on Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Innovative Interventions Implemented During COVID-19 Among Adolescent Girls and Young Women in North-West Province of South Africa

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. Please explain how the number of participants and their roles was chosen. Is this a large enough sample to ensure the credibility of the results?
2. The coding strategy should be explained in more detail. The independent coding should be conducted by at least two researchers and then compared. Similarly, the translation of the interviews to English language should be done by at least two translators in order to ensure correct translation.
3. Please add the information about how the data gathered within the study are secured.

All figures are well designed and I have no comments.

Please add additional information in Methodology section as stated above.

Please add geographical limitation in Limitations section.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1,

Thank you for taking the time to review the manuscript. We appreciate the comments made to improve it.

I have loaded the rebuttal for reference to the addressed comments

Best regards,

Lucia

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for this very interesting paper that I enjoyed reading. You report from a series of useful innovations to ensure PrEP maintenance during the C19 lockdowns, and continuity afterwards.

The paper is well written and very focused, and I have some relatively minor recommendations that I hope are useful.

One point I would have been interested in seeing is whether lessons learned during the lockdown were utilised afterwards (apologies if I missed this in the text). In other contexts, studies suggest some benefits from innovations introduced during lockdown (this isn’t to diminish the many difficulties of course). If there are data, I’d suggest adding a short note about this in the Results or Discussion section. You suggest there are benefits later in the paper (line 430: studies to explore “other novel initiatives that can be adopted and improve services in all settings,”) but additional insights from this study about lessons ‘carried forward’ would be interesting.

I support your final sentence – the need for better pandemic preparedness!

1. Can more information could be provided in the Introduction specifically about AGYW? Also, I also note that ‘young women’ are mentioned in the title, but ‘AGYW’ in the text. This needs tidying for consistency.

2. It would be interesting to know if you used computer software during the Analysis – or was this done manually? Also, was the coding done by one person or several people?

3. In the Results section, should there be a new subheading at line 294 (3.3) with the shift to post-lockdown? Also, line 359 has a specific reference to ‘Nigerians’ – is this appropriate? I’d recommend editing (“in relationships with [people from a specific country] who are known to…”) or something similar.  

4. The Limitations you highlight are appropriate – I’d also recommend adding that, as a qualitative study, this is only the ‘point of view’ of the respondents. Further studies are required to confirm their observations (including with service users).

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2,

Thank you for taking the time to review the manuscript. We appreciate the comments made to improve it.

I have loaded the rebuttal letter for your reference to the addressed comments.

Best regards,

Lucia

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf