PONE-D-19-19188

Arbovirus Vectors of Epidemiological Concern in the Americas: A Scoping Review of Entomological Studies on Zika, Dengue and Chikungunya Virus Vectors

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Talbot,

Thank you very much for submitting your manuscript "Arbovirus Vectors of Epidemiological Concern in the Americas: A Scoping Review of Entomological Studies on Zika, Dengue and Chikungunya Virus Vectors" (#PONE-D-19-19188) for review by PLOS ONE. As with all papers submitted to the journal, your manuscript was fully evaluated by academic editor (myself) and by independent peer reviewers. The reviewers appreciated the attention to an important health topic, but they raised substantial concerns about the paper that must be addressed before this manuscript can be accurately assessed for meeting the PLOS ONE criteria. Therefore, if you feel these issues can be adequately addressed, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. We can’t, of course, promise publication at that time.

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Abdallah M. Samy, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

I invited and received two reviews of your manuscript; both reviews raised some substantial concerns for your manuscript as it currently stands. I completely agree to the point raised by reviewers that your study missed many literature including ones that we published later (#check Samy et al. 2016). Please respond properly for all comments raised by our reviewers below. I would kindly ask you to check the Journal style requirements before submitting a revised version of your manuscript.

Reviewers' comments:

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Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: N/A

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The manuscript is a scoping review that provides an overview on the current state of entomological knowledge of the mosquito vectors of Zika, dengue and chikungunya viruses in the Americas. The authors performed a thorough review of articles on these viruses and theirs hosts published between January 2013 and March 2018. I believe that this study represents a valuable overview of a wide body of research. However, I believe that the study does not entirely meet its own objectives, and could benefit from a more focused approach and a bit more synthesis. I am also concerned that the short time-frame examined by the authors does not provide a full and accurate picture of the literature on several topics. While the nature of publishing makes it impossible for a review to capture all of the most up-to-date papers, the time frame set by the authors starts too late to capture many valuable studies on important vector species. The authors’ time frame seems suited to a study of public health effects of these arboviruses in the Americas, but there is much more entomological literature from the ‘90s and 2000s that would provide a much more complete picture on this subject. I would strongly encourage the authors to broaden their time frame.

A few comments and suggestions are listed below:

Abstract:

1) Line 28: Please correct the spelling of “arthropod”

2) Line 34: I don’t know that I agree with this. While Ae. albopictus has demonstrated vector competence for all three viruses, and has been implicated in the transmission of these viruses in Europe, Asia and the Americas, there is still little evidence that it is the primary vector for any of these viruses in the Americas. Please remove the word “primary”.

3) Line 49: This seems like a bit of a leap, given that the authors list several good studies on interspecific competition. Perhaps it would be better to say simply that much work is left to be done regarding interspecific competition, given the breadth of the topic.

4) General comments: I would like to see some mention of methods in the abstract. Also, it seems redundant to have both “Key findings” and “Conclusions,” especially given how short the “Conclusions” section is.

Introduction:

5) Lines 61-63: This language is somewhat confusing. It implies that ZIKV, DENV and CHIKV are the only arboviruses with global health implications. It also makes it somewhat unclear that "arboviruses" and "arthropod-borne viruses" are the same thing.

6) Line 68: What is the meaning of “uncharacterized” here? Perhaps it would be better to say that until recently ZIKV transmission has been confined to Africa and Asia.

7) Line 93: Arthralgia can actually persist for over a year, if not longer. See Gianandrea et al., 2008.

8) Line 109: I’m not sure about the term “evidence” here. Perhaps “knowledge” would be more accurate?

Methods:

9) Lines 117-118: I would suggest that the authors consider using an additional search library, such as Web of Science. It might provide a broader pool of results.

10) General comment: Was this study conducted using PRISMA guidelines? If so, please mention this and provide PRISMA checklist.

Results:

11) Lines 200-205: This section is a prime example of why this paper could benefit from broadening the examined time frame. There are papers from Richards et al. (2006), Dennett et al. (2007), and Niebylski et al. (1994) that provide a much more complete picture of Ae. albopictus blood feeding behavior in North America.

12) Lines 293-299: Medley et al. (2014) also provides valuable insight into Ae. albopictus population genetics across North America. Not sure why this did not meet study criteria.

Discussion:

13) Line 103: Please replace “immatures” with a more correct term. “immature stages” or “larvae” would be fine.

14) Line 108: “have been consistently with arbovirus vector occurrence”… Consistently associated? Please clarify.

15) Line 111: Again, I do not think it is fair to say that it is poorly understood, though more research is certainly needed. Please rephrase.

General overall comments:

16) Please review manuscript for spelling errors and punctuation.

17) While the manuscript lays out much of the research around ZIKV, DENV, CHIKV and vector species, it does not provide much in the way of highlighting knowledge gaps. I think this would be a much stronger paper if there were more emphasis in the discussion on specifically highlighting issues that need more research to resolve.

Reviewer #2: In this manuscript the authors provide a review of entomological studies of three emerging arboviruses of critical concern in the past decade. Though this sort of review has been conducted before, this manuscript distinguishes itself by providing a framework for identifying knowledge gaps and guiding future research.

This scoping review is certainly informative, but it reads more as a perspective piece than a research article. While there is nothing wrong with that, it should be clearer in its presentation of that fact.

Even in a scoping review article, I believe a manuscript should still address key questions and I felt that this review read more as a book chapter than a research article. While the authors do include the question “What is the current state of the evidence on mosquito vector population dynamics and behaviour, mosquito vector distribution and environmental suitability, vector species composition and virus transmission by mosquito vectors as they relate to Zika, dengue

and chikungunya viruses in the Americas?” this is a very broad overarching inquiry. I would have preferred specific directed questions which are supported by the scoping review. For example, Are Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus distributions influenced by specific environmental conditions? Is this uniform globally? As a scoping review which aims to highlight knowledge gaps I felt that this kind of structure would be beneficial.

I would have liked to see more directed questions.

Abstract

-arthropod is misspelled

-Why were only studies from 2013 considered? Because of the shift in focus to research on these viruses? What about studies between 2013 and 2016 which were covered in Waddell et al.

-How much overlap is there between the 2016 scoping review and this one?

LN 62: yes largely, but new findings highlight the importance of ticks and other arthropods, otherwise we could call them mosquito-borne viruses. Please modify to specify that many are transmitted by mosquitoes instead of largely.

LN 93: background information on chikungunya seems pale in comparison to that of Zika and dengue. Since this is not just a scoping review of Zika, I would expand the section on chikungunya significantly

Ln 95: sub-Saharan Africa

LN 101: please include

Kraemer, M.U., Reiner, R.C., Brady, O.J., Messina, J.P., Gilbert, M., Pigott, D.M., Yi, D., Johnson, K., Earl, L., Marczak, L.B. and Shirude, S., 2019. Past and future spread of the arbovirus vectors Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus. Nature microbiology, 4(5), p.854.

While the statement in LN 205: “Vinauger et al. [29] experimentally demonstrated the importance of dopamine in relation to host-seeking behaviour” is interesting, this falls more within behavior than blood feeding. Host seeking and feeding are different strategies and dopamine being an attractant may not influence patterns of blood feeding unless you have species differences in the release of dopamine.

LN 154: chikungunya should be lower case

LN 200: No comment is made about Culex

The subsections of the results are intriguing, but I find that some sections are lacking in content beyond one or two studies.

LN 334: there have been conflicting studies on socioeconomics and Aedes vectors and geography

This review provides a long list of directions in which future researchers can begin to investigate and this review is well outlines and compiled; however, all of the outstanding questions seem scattered throughout the text. I would prefer to see a conceptual figure outlining the different disciplines and specific questions remaining. If not a figure, a table would be a very useful guide or framework for researchers to build off of.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Arbovirus Vectors of Epidemiological Concern in the Americas: A Scoping Review of Entomological Studies on Zika, Dengue and Chikungunya Virus Vectors

PONE-D-19-19188R1

Dear Dr. Talbot,

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With kind regards,

Abdallah M. Samy, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE