Application of Surveillance Principles in the Progressive Control Pathway for Global Control of Foot-and-Mouth Disease
, Giancarlo Ferrari 4, Melissa McLaws 1,4 and Jose L. Gonzales 5
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Metwally et al in their manuscript titled “Application of Surveillance Principles in the Progressive Control Pathway for Global Control of Foot-and-Mouth Disease” detailed and summarized the importance of a surveillance system as part of implementing a progressive disease control pathway (PCP) approach to disease control and the surveillance principles in the Progressive Control Pathway (PCP) approaches for animal epidemic diseases using a PCP-FMD as an example, which is based on a full FAO guiding document “Practical Surveillance Guidelines for the Progressive Control of Foot and Mouth Disease and Other Transboundary Animal Diseases' that describes in more detail the surveillance systems in the first three stages of PCP-FMD. The paper is basically a well-organized and well-written minireviews, which is informative to these involved in the research, teaching and practice on the prevention and control of animal epidemic diseases.
One minor error should be corrected.
1. There is a minor error in line 182 of the page 5 need to be corrected, where “….such as..” is suggested to change to “as such ….” In addition to delete a half parentheses ) after the area.
Author Response
The sentence has been changed. "Such as" was changed to "which" and the extra ")" was removed.
Reviewer 2 Report
1. In lines 47-49, why is the text bolded? Does this fit the format of the article.
2. In line 117, Table1 recommends the use of a three-line table.
3. Table1,"Surveillance relationship with PCP outcome", the content is proposed to be reformatted: align the "black dots".
4. Table1,"Surveillance relationship with PCP outcome", the three items in the last item appear to be duplicated in the first item.
5. There seems to be an extra space at the beginning of several sentences in this article, so it is recommended to check whether the spaces are full/half corners.
6. "3.1.2. Passive disease surveillance", the content lacks organization and it is suggested that the strengths and weaknesses be numbered and described in points.
7. In line 129, The use of "should be" in this context seems inaccurate, as FMD has long been a must-report disease. Suggested changes here.
8. In lines 153-154, why is the text bolded? Does this fit the format of the article.
9. Are there different protocols for testing FMD antibody levels for each genotype or serology?
10. Too few references seem to be cited.
11. Could you add more detail to the testing principles, as I only seem to see the overall effect of the "testing principles" in this article.
Author Response
comments:
1. In lines 47-49, why is the text bolded? Does this fit the format of the article.
The bolding was removed but the italics remained. This change follows the journal’s recommendation.
- In line 117, Table1 recommends the use of a three-line table.
We appreciate the suggestion of a three-line table but since there are multiple surveillance components associated with a single outcome, we believe the current format will be easier for readers and still comply with the journal style.
- Table1,"Surveillance relationship with PCP outcome", the content is proposed to be reformatted: align the "black dots".
The black dots that comprise the outline format have been reformatted.
- Table1,"Surveillance relationship with PCP outcome", the three items in the last item appear to be duplicated in the first item.
Correct, they are repeated. Surveillance components can address more than a single outcome. A sentence has been added to explain the lack of a one-to-one relationship.
- There seems to be an extra space at the beginning of several sentences in this article, so it is recommended to check whether the spaces are full/half corners.
Thank you. We have checked for extra spaces and revised where necessary so that there is only a single space between sentences.
- 6. "3.1.2. Passive disease surveillance", the content lacks organization and it is suggested that the strengths and weaknesses be numbered and described in points.
The strengths were formatted with bullet points to make them clearer.
- In line 129, The use of "should be" in this context seems inaccurate, as FMD has long been FMD is internationally notifiable but within a country there may not be legislative support for this nor effective notification of potential infection by farmers. Wording has been added to clarify this point.
- In lines 153-154, why is the text bolded? Does this fit the format of the article.
Bolded text has been changed to italics to still highlight the statement.
- Are there different protocols for testing FMD antibody levels for each genotype or serology?
The WOAH reference for the terrestrial manual section 8.8 was added to address this issue.
Some additional references have been added.
- Could you add more detail to the testing principles, as I only seem to see the overall effect of the "testing principles" in this article.
The intent of this article is to summarize the approach of linking PCP, specifically PCP-FMD, outcomes with surveillance approaches. We believe the virologic and serologic testing strategies are beyond the scope of this paper, but we added a reference to the WOAH terrestrial manual that can provide background on the issue.
