A Real-Time Infodemiology Study on Public Interest in Mpox (Monkeypox) following the World Health Organization Global Public Health Emergency Declaration

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This article analyzes real-time, non-real-time monkeypox incidence data and Google Health Trends API data from 72 hours before and after WHO declared monkeypox a Public Health Emergency of International Concern in five countries, the most monkeypox victims. The study's relevance is justified by the fact that Google Trends is an effective real-time tool for monitoring epidemic outbreaks. Google Trends provides hourly (real-time) data for the last seven days of Google searches. The non-real-time data is a random sample covering search trends from 2004 to 72 hours. The Google Health Trends API retrieves daily raw search probabilities based on the period and underlying population size. Therefore, this study analyzed real-time, non-real-time monkeypox data and Google Health Trends API data from 72 hours before and after WHO declared monkeypox a public health emergency of international concern for five countries most affected by monkeypox. Junction point regression was used to measure hourly percentage changes in search volume. The WHO Statement of Public Health Emergency of International Concern for Monkeypox resulted in 18,225.6 per 10 million Google searches in the US and Germany (946.8) and an average 103% increase in HPC in 0–4 hours ( 95% CI: 37.4–200.0).

Despite the satisfactory quality of the article, some shortcomings need to be corrected.

1. Section 0 should be deleted.
2. The aim of the paper should be included.
3. The Current research analysis section is needed. Whether authors investigate data analysis on epidemic outbreaks, it is recommended to briefly review also the forecasting models of epidemic process distribution, e.g., doi: 10.3390/computation10060086
4. The Methods section should be expanded, highlighting approaches authors propose within the given research.
5. Results presented in figures 1-3 should be described in more detail in the text.
6. It is recommended to expand the Discussion section with peculiarities of monkeypox in comparison to other research investigating other infection diseases.
7. The Conclusions are a declaration of the paper. The main findings of the research should be described.
8. The scientific and practical novelty of the research should be highlighted.

In summarizing my comments, I recommend that the manuscript is accepted after major revision. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,
On behalf of my co-author, I would like to thank you for taking the time to review our work and provide constructive feedback. We were not given a detailed description in our previous draft due to the word limit (1500 words) for communication. However, in response to your comments and suggestions, we have taken great care to elaborate on each section and precisely describe our work. Our responses to your comments and suggestions are listed below. Following your review, we significantly improved our manuscript. We appreciate your constructive feedback on our research. Please provide us with your valuable feedback on our revised version.

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This article analyzes real-time, non-real-time monkeypox incidence data and Google Health Trends API data from 72 hours before and after WHO declared monkeypox a Public Health Emergency of International Concern in five countries, the most monkeypox victims. The study's relevance is justified by the fact that Google Trends is an effective real-time tool for monitoring epidemic outbreaks. Google Trends provides hourly (real-time) data for the last seven days of Google searches. The non-real-time data is a random sample covering search trends from 2004 to 72 hours. The Google Health Trends API retrieves daily raw search probabilities based on the period and underlying population size. Therefore, this study analyzed real-time, non-real-time monkeypox data and Google Health Trends API data from 72 hours before and after WHO declared monkeypox a public health emergency of international concern for five countries most affected by monkeypox. Junction point regression was used to measure hourly percentage changes in search volume. The WHO Statement of Public Health Emergency of International Concern for Monkeypox resulted in 18,225.6 per 10 million Google searches in the US and Germany (946.8) and an average 103% increase in HPC in 0–4 hours ( 95% CI: 37.4–200.0).

Despite the satisfactory quality of the article, some shortcomings need to be corrected.

1. Section 0 should be deleted.

              Apologies for the oversight. We have removed section 0.

2. The aim of the paper should be included.

              We have included a sentence stating the aim of the study.

3. The Current research analysis section is needed. Whether authors investigate data analysis on epidemic outbreaks, it is recommended to briefly review also the forecasting models of epidemic process distribution, e.g., doi: 10.3390/computation10060086

              Thank you For these suggestions. We have expanded the literature, highlighting the need for studies such as ours in the context of the existing literature, and also cited the above paper.

4. The Methods section should be expanded, highlighting approaches authors propose within the given research.

              We have extended the methods section and precisely detailed our approach.

5. Results presented in figures 1-3 should be described in more detail in the text.

              We have added detail for each figure in the text.

6. It is recommended to expand the Discussion section with peculiarities of monkeypox in comparison to other research investigating other infection diseases.

              Thank you for the suggestion. We have added more detail on this and added the studies as recommended by the reviewers.

7. The Conclusions are a declaration of the paper. The main findings of the research should be described. The scientific and practical novelty of the research should be highlighted.

              Thank you for the suggestion. We have strengthened the conclusions and highlighted the specific novel contribution of our study.

In summarizing my comments, I recommend that the manuscript is accepted after major revision.

Reviewer 2 Report

I recommend a major revision based on the below points. Please, add a point-to-point response to each comment in the revision:

-          I am not convinced about the novelty of the manuscript. 

-          The abstract is not technical and needs to highlight the research gap clearly.

-          The structure of the paper is vague.

-          The novelty of the paper needs to be justified and clearly defined. It includes a clear difference between the available literature and previous works. The authors are asked to provide the limitations of the previous correlated works and then link those limitations to the current ideas and contributions of the current work.

-          Do not use acronyms in the title.

-          Why is there section 0 in the paper?

-          Please avoid using the words "you," "we," or "our" in the manuscript. Please, consider using phrases like "in this study/paper/Proposed/method" or another appropriate phrasing. This applies to the entire manuscript.

-          It needs to add the reasons why these metrics are used for comparison. 

Overall, the paper has many inconsistencies, and the contributions are unclear. The results are not compared with the ground truth properly. Limitations are not provided in their current approach. Future directions are not clearly stated.

I am looking forward to seeing your revised version. 

 

All the best. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,
On behalf of my co-author, I would like to thank you for taking the time to review our work and provide constructive feedback. We were not given a detailed description in our previous draft due to the word limit (1500 words) for communication. However, in response to your comments and suggestions, we have taken great care to elaborate on each section and precisely describe our work. Our responses to your comments and suggestions are listed below. Following your review, we significantly improved our manuscript. We appreciate your constructive feedback on our research. Please provide us with your valuable feedback on our revised version.

I recommend a major revision based on the below points. Please, add a point-to-point response to each comment in the revision:

1. I am not convinced about the novelty of the manuscript.

              See below

2. The abstract is not technical and needs to highlight the research gap clearly.

              We have added the details and highlighted the research gap in the revised manuscript.

3. The structure of the paper is vague.

              The structure of the paper was improved.

4. The novelty of the paper needs to be justified and clearly defined. It includes a clear difference between the available literature and previous works. The authors are asked to provide the limitations of the previous correlated works and then link those limitations to the current ideas and contributions of the current work.

              We have described this precisely. We included previous studies conducted using the Google Trends approach and discussed precisely the differences between our study and previous studies.

5. Do not use acronyms in the title.

              Done.

6. Why is there section 0 in the paper?

              Deleted. Apologies for the oversight.

7. Please avoid using the words "you," "we," or "our" in the manuscript. Please, consider using phrases like "in this study/paper/Proposed/method" or another appropriate phrasing. This applies to the entire manuscript.

              Done.

8. It needs to add the reasons why these metrics are used for comparison.

              We have described the differences between real-time RSV and non-real-time RSV and Google Health API probabilities in the methods sections

9. Overall, the paper has many inconsistencies, and the contributions are unclear. The results are not compared with the ground truth properly. Limitations are not provided in their current approach. Future directions are not clearly stated.

              We have added the limitations and made suggestions for future directions.

I am looking forward to seeing your revised version.

All the best.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thanks for the analysis and considering the reviewer's comments and recommendations. In my opinion, now the paper can be accepted.

Reviewer 2 Report

Congratulations