Structured PREreview of Confronting Hepatitis E Virus in Africa: Insights from Nigeria and Pathways for Control

Does the introduction explain the objective of the research presented in the preprint?

Partly

The title was broad and didn't explicitly discuss the objectives of the study. There is need to maintain a good flow from the epidemiology to the justification of the study.

Are the methods well-suited for this research?

Somewhat inappropriate

We noticed a lot of discrepancies with the methodology. The method section lacks details and there were no justification for most of the choices made. For example, justification for the eligibility criteria and justification for choosing the search duration from 1990 to 2025. Also, it's not clear what type of study this is. The search terms could have been more detailed and possibly discussed in the introduction section.

Are the conclusions supported by the data?

Somewhat supported

We suggest a more concised conclusion that shows the synthesized data, recommendations, and significance of the study.

Are the data presentations, including visualizations, well-suited to represent the data?

Neither appropriate and clear nor inappropriate and unclear

We hope the results were separated from the discussion to enable better appreciation of the visualizations. Also, data presented look more like an aggregation rather than analysis.

How clearly do the authors discuss, explain, and interpret their findings and potential next steps for the research?

Somewhat unclearly

The discussion didn't clearly state the synthesized data. It reads more like a literature review than interpretation of the findings. There's need to restructure the discussion section. For example, the preventive and control strategies can explicitly capture one health approach as one of the strategies, then followed by other strategies. The objective was not clearly stated thereby making the understanding of the results and discussion more difficult.

Is the preprint likely to advance academic knowledge?

Moderately likely

Would it benefit from language editing?

Yes

Would you recommend this preprint to others?

Yes, but it needs to be improved

Is it ready for attention from an editor, publisher or broader audience?

No, it needs a major revision

The introduction, methodology, Results and Discussion.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The authors declare that they did not use generative AI to come up with new ideas for their review.