Contamination of Surface Water and River Sediments by Antibiotic and Antiretroviral Drug Cocktails in Low and Middle-Income Countries: Occurrence, Risk and Mitigation Strategies

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

General Comments:

The manuscript contains minor grammatical and punctuation mark errors that need to be corrected.

 

Specific Comments: 

1. The last paragraph of the Introduction section contains abbreviations that should be spelled out at first use.
2. What were the characteristics of the effluent emerging from the wastewater treatment plant in terms of organic matter and nutrients content, pH, temperature, suspended solids and volatile suspended solids concentrations? This information is important as it will demonstrate the extent and efficiency of wastewater treatment by the plant.
3. Section 2.2.: What companies were the suppliers of the pharmaceutical standards and corresponding isotope-labeled internal standards and other chemical compounds used during this study?
4. Page 4, line 131: It should be Table 3 not Table 2.
5. Table 3: The higher upstream concentrations of many APIs compared to their respective downstream concentrations suggest that the effluent SPM may not be the major pathway for emission of API’s into the receiving waters. Please comment on this observation.
6. Page 6, line 183: Please mention the compound-specific no-effect concentrations for the APIs examined in this study.
7. Page 6, line 184: The authors should expand on their reference to non-target environmental microorganisms. What environmental microorganisms are referred to?

Author Response

see attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper deals with the determination of some antibiotics and antiretroviral drugs in the effluent, SPM Surface water and river sediments. The topic seems interesting and taken on-site samples gives the work an extra value. However, I have serious doubts about if it is enough for been publish:

- The sample collection should be clarify. How many samples were taken? Only two-day samples? Apparently, the data seems scarce for been conclusive.  Please, clarify.

- The authors assure that there is not other work determining the antibiotic and antiretroviral drugs in SPM phases? Why? Is that true?

- L56 andL167 robust WWTP’s. What it means? This is not scientific term. Please, clarify.

- The discussion lacks scientific soundness. This is specially true in point 4.2 (L200-L219).

- API is not defined in the abstract (L25)

 

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have incorporated my comments and answered my questions in the revised manuscript.  The manuscript can be accepted in its present form.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors improved the manuscript