Patterns of Presentation of Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis in Nigeria: A Retrospective File Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript recruited drug resistant TB patients between 2010 and 2016 in Nigeria and investigated the correlation of TB drug resistance with socioi-demographic factors including age, sex, treatment, drug resistance, areas, and HIV status.

 

There are some concerns about this manus.

 

1.     The writing quality is poor. There are lots of grammar problems and unstandardized writing. The authors need to improve it. Here listed parts of them.

 

“DR-TB” in line30 is the abbreviation of drug resistant tuberculosis, which is the first appearance. According to the academic writing, it should be written as full name followed with the abbreviation.

 

In line177, “…participants with…” should be “…participants including…”.

 

In line183, “…of the respondents had multi-drug resistancefollowed…” should have a space between the word resistance and the word followed.

 

2.     Line61 to line62 introduced new infected and death data in 2018. Is that the newest data?

 

3.     Table 1 summarized the participants information in this study. Table1 was cited at the end of this paragraph (line181). It is better to cite Table 1 at the beginning, such as “As shown in Table 1”.

 

4.     Line177 to line186 did not describe the information from Table1 clearly. There are some grammar problems. The authors should clearly describe age distribution. In table1, there are 2476 samples from patient group, including 567 newly treated and 1909 previously treated. In total there are 2555 participants. Are the other 79 samples from untreated ones? The authors should reflect that information in Table1. 1909 samples are from previously treated patient. Why are only 823 samples shown in “No of previous treatment”? In addition, 1303 samples showed HIV status, negative or positive. Did the other samples have no HIV information? The authors need to modify Table 1 and reorganize the related text.

 

5.     How did you calculate the statistic significance? The authors should add those detailed information.

 

Author Response

June 21st, 2022

 

 

Manuscript ID: microbiolres-1768798

Pattern of presentation of drug-resistant Tuberculosis in Nigeria; a retrospective file review.

Point-by-Point response to the reviewer comments

 

Dear Editor,

 

We thank the handling editor and reviewers for reviewing our manuscript. We are pleased that there is interest in this topic and are grateful for the constructive comments that have improved the manuscript.

 

We have addressed each of the reviewers’ comments in a point-by-point manner in the table below. The reviewers’ comments are on the left column, and our responses are highlighted in blue font on the right. We have also made corresponding changes in the manuscript, indicating the revised sections with "track changes. While hoping that these changes will meet with your favorable consideration, we hold ourselves at your disposition for any further clarifications.

 

 

Editorial requests
Reviewer 1
The writing quality is poor. There are lots of grammar problems and unstandardized writing. The authors need to improve it. Here listed parts of them	This is noted and has been addressed.
“DR-TB” in line30 is the abbreviation of drug resistant tuberculosis, which is the first appearance. According to the academic writing, it should be written as full name followed with the abbreviation	“DR-TB” has been written in full with the abbreviation in parenthesis
In line177, “…participants with…” should be “…participants including…”.	The correction has been made accordingly
In line183, “…of the respondents had multi-drug resistancefollowed…” should have a space between the word resistance and the word followed	A space has been inserted between the word “resistance” and “followed”.
Line61 to line62 introduced new infected and death data in 2018. Is that the newest data?	This is the data available
Table 1 summarized the participants information in this study. Table1 was cited at the end of this paragraph (line181). It is better to cite Table 1 at the beginning, such as “As shown in Table 1”	Table 1 has been cited at the beginning of the sentence.
Line177 to line186 did not describe the information from Table1 clearly. There are some grammar problems. The authors should clearly describe age distribution. In table1, there are 2476 samples from patient group, including 567 newly treated and 1909 previously treated. In total there are 2555 participants. Are the other 79 samples from untreated ones? The authors should reflect that information in Table1. 1909 samples are from previously treated patient. Why are only 823 samples shown in “No of previous treatment”? In addition, 1303 samples showed HIV status, negative or positive. Did the other samples have no HIV information? The authors need to modify Table 1 and reorganize the related text	Lines 177 to 186 have now been addressed                 This is missing record issues and the annotation for missing record has been included
How did you calculate the statistic significance? The authors should add those detailed information	This is described in the Data analysis section

 

Sincerely,

 

Regards,

 

 

 

--------------------------

Olanrewaju Oladimeji II MB; BS, MSc, MPA, FRSPH, PhD
Research Chair: Department of Public Health, Walter Sisulu University, Eastern Cape, South Africa

Visiting Scholar: Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, USA

Adjunct Professor: Faculty of Health Sciences, Durban University of Technology, South Africa.

email: [email protected]@wsu.ac.za

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments for authors:

1. Can authors include the types of specimens that is used for detection of TB by GeneXpert method?

2. Authors should includes more recent (2018 to 2022) references in this study.

Author Response

June 21st, 2022

 

 

Manuscript ID: microbiolres-1768798

Pattern of presentation of drug-resistant Tuberculosis in Nigeria; a retrospective file review.

Point-by-Point response to the reviewer comments

 

Dear Editor,

 

We thank the handling editor and reviewers for reviewing our manuscript. We are pleased that there is interest in this topic and are grateful for the constructive comments that have improved the manuscript.

 

We have addressed each of the reviewers’ comments in a point-by-point manner in the table below. The reviewers’ comments are on the left column, and our responses are highlighted in blue font on the right. We have also made corresponding changes in the manuscript, indicating the revised sections with "track changes. While hoping that these changes will meet with your favorable consideration, we hold ourselves at your disposition for any further clarifications.

 

 

Reviewer 2
Can authors include the types of specimens that is used for detection of TB by GeneXpert method?	This has been included in the first sentence under “DRTB case finding and diagnostic coverage” section.
Authors should include more recent (2018 to 2022) references in this study	We struggled to find new information on the study given the changes that have been brought in by WHO.

 

Sincerely,

 

Regards,

 

 

 

--------------------------

Olanrewaju Oladimeji II MB; BS, MSc, MPA, FRSPH, PhD
Research Chair: Department of Public Health, Walter Sisulu University, Eastern Cape, South Africa

Visiting Scholar: Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, USA

Adjunct Professor: Faculty of Health Sciences, Durban University of Technology, South Africa.

email: [email protected]@wsu.ac.za

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors answered the comments and the writing improved a lot. But to publish, I strongly recommend to ask the professional person further improve the writing. There are still some issues. Here listed part of them. 

1. The font size of "drug-resistant tuberculosis" is smaller than others (line28).

2. There are grammar problems in line44-46.  

 

Author Response

Pattern of presentation of drug-resistant Tuberculosis in Nigeria; a retrospective file review

Point-by-Point response to the reviewer comments

 

Dear Editor,

 

We thank the Handling Editor and reviewers for their efforts. We are pleased that there is interest in this topic and are grateful for the constructive comments that have improved the manuscript.

 

We have addressed each of the reviewers’ comments in a point-by-point manner in the table below. The reviewers’ comments are on the left column, and our responses are highlighted in blue font on the right. We have also made corresponding changes in the manuscript, indicating the revised sections with "track changes. While hoping that these changes will meet with your favorable consideration, we hold ourselves at your disposition for any further clarifications.

 

S/N	Comments	Response
Reviewer 2
1	The authors answered the comments and the writing improved a lot. But to publish, I strongly recommend to ask the professional person further improve the writing. There are still some issues. Here listed part of them.	All the comments as listed have now been thoroughly addressed in the manuscript. Professional editing certificate is now provided
2	The font size of "drug-resistant tuberculosis" is smaller than others (line28).	This font size has now been changed to “Segoe UI Historic 12” on line 29
3	There are grammar problems in line44-46.	The grammar problems have now been attended to. This section has been rephrased

 

Yours’

 

 

 

Olanrewaju Oladimeji, MB;BS, MSc, MPA, MACE, FRSPH, PhD, Cert. Clinical Trials (Harvard), Postdoc (Harvard)

Epidemiologist and Research Chair: Department of Public Health, Walter Sisulu University, Eastern Cape, South Africa  

Visiting Scholar: Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, USA 

Adjunct Professor: Public Health, College of Health Science, Bowen University, Iwo, Nigeria

Adjunct Professor: Faculty of Health Sciences, Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa

Visiting Professor: Department of Community Medicine, College of Health Sciences, University of Jos, Nigeria

Editorial Board Member: Nature Scientific Reports
Associate Editor: BiomedCentral Public Health; WC1X 8HB, United Kingdom
Academic Editor: PLOS ONE Journal; 1160 Battery Street, Suite 225, San Francisco, CA 94111 

Emails: [email protected] II [email protected] II [email protected] Cell: +27622583986 

www.sayas.org.za/?team=olanrewaju-oladimeji

www.researchgate.net/profile/Olanrewaju-Oladimeji

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx