Author's response to reviews Title: Social and cultural features of cholera and shigellosis in peri-urban and rural communities of Zanzibar Authors:

Results. Should give more quantitative results to show points being made. Give %, give p values, etc. Conclusions. Some of these conclusions don’t follow the results given. Not clear why woman and rural areas should be targeted with education. Is that education related to the disease or the vaccine or both. Also calling for more research is never a satisfying conclusion. The association between the data here and vaccine introduction should be more delineated here. • Results: While adhering to the word limit, we have now reported more figures in the revised abstract, as requested. • Conclusions: This paragraph was revised to make it more consistent with the extensive revision addressing concerns about the need for clearer logic justifying the conclusions based on findings in both the text and abstract. Introduction. General comments. The background does not clearly state why this study is important at this point in time. It is long on the background of the clinical and epidemiologic background of cholera and shigella, which is not so relevant for this paper. This part can be shortened. In contrast, it would be useful to get some context of why the cholera vaccine is being introduced in Zanzibar. Who will be targeted? When will it happen? IN addition, the connection between why KAP regarding cholera and shigella and impending vaccine introduction should be made stronger. This is discussed in page 7, but perhaps more specific examples of how KAP influenced vaccine introduction can be cited. • The revised Background section is specific to the aims of this study, and it has dropped the presentation of clinical features of cholera and shigellosis.