PONE-D-20-09693

Magnitude of underweight, wasting and stunting among HIV positive children in East Africa: a systematic review and meta-analysis

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Biruk Beletew ,

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Claudia Marotta

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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2. We noticed you have some minor occurrence of overlapping text with the following previous publications, which needs to be addressed:

Rose AM, Hall CS, Martinez-Alier NAetiology and management of malnutrition in HIV-positive children Archives of Disease in Childhood 2014;99:546-551.

Eyasu Desta Menamo, 2014, Impact of Household Food Insecurity on Adherence to Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) among Urban PLHIV, Hamburg, Bedey Media GmbH, https://www.anchor-publishing.com/document/276651

Gabriel Anabwani, Peter Navario, Nutrition and HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa: An overview, Nutrition, Volume 21, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 96-99, ISSN 0899-9007, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nut.2004.09.013. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899900704002254)

Byron, E., Gillespie, S., & Nangami, M. (2008). Integrating Nutrition Security with Treatment of People Living with HIV: Lessons from Kenya. Food and Nutrition Bulletin, 29(2), 87–97. https://doi.org/10.1177/156482650802900202

Trehan I, O'Hare BA, Phiri A, Heikens GT. Challenges in the Management of HIV-Infected Malnourished Children in Sub-Saharan Africa. AIDS Res Treat. 2012;2012:790786. doi:10.1155/2012/790786

Beletew, B., Mengesha, A., Wudu, M. et al. Prevalence of neonatal hypothermia and its associated factors in East Africa: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Pediatr 20, 148 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12887-020-02024-w

The text that needs to be addressed involves the Background section.

In your revision ensure you cite all your sources (including your own works), and quote or rephrase any duplicated text outside the methods section. Further consideration is dependent on these concerns being addressed.

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Dear Authors,

I appreciate your manuscript, but need major revisions.

Following reviewer suggestions you can improve your paper.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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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: Authors wrote a very interesting manuscript on an important issue. Congratulations.

Only some suggestions:

1.Introduction: well wrote

2. Methods: "The search date was December 30/2019" is in yellow please remove the color

3. Results, Figure and Tables: I appreciate a lot

4. Discussion and Conclusion: if you can improve your discussion with some items:

- the definition on Children at risk. underweight, wasting and stunting among HIV positive children are the most vulnerable group and need more medical and research attention

(Marotta C, Di Gennaro F, Pizzol D, et al. The At Risk Child Clinic (ARCC): 3 Years of Health Activities in Support of the Most Vulnerable Children in Beira, Mozambique. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2018;15(7):1350").

- The central role of task shifting to sharing experience and best practice

(Marotta C, Giaquinto C, Di Gennaro F, et al. Pathways of care for HIV infected children in Beira, Mozambique: pre-post intervention study to assess impact of task shifting. BMC Public Health. 2018;18(1):703. Published 2018 Jun 7.)

Reviewer #2: The first time you use an abbreviation, please spell its and then use the abbreviation (i.e. SAM, HIV)

Abstract

method: who HIV condition is not mentioned?

Results: why in the abstract do you go in deep regarding the period (2008-2014/ 2015-2019) and no data on malnutrition on HIV negative patients are reported?

Background

About the definition of under-nutrition (as part of malnutrition) authors should refer to WHO definition that is not that reported

If the authors focused the review in East Africa, the background should be focused also in East and not in sub-Saharan Africa (especially considering that they are suggesting a further review on Sub-saharan)

the whole background is quite confused with a mix of epidemiological data and possible explanation of interaction between HIV and malnutrition: please reorganise.

Methods

The Review question “What is the pooled prevalence of under-weight, wasting and stunting in East Africa context?” has no reference on HIV

The search strategy again does not contain the HIV term

Results

- “A total of 3094 studies were identified; 2050 from PubMed, 12 from Cochrane Library, 1010 from Google Scholar and 22 from other 120 sources. After duplication removed, a total of 970 articles remained” Are authors saying that PubMed database had more than 1000 duplicates?

Discussion

authors should discuss the mutual relationship between HIV and nutrition

why authors divided studies before and after 2014? They should discuss their choice

Authors should provide data on nutrition status among HIV negative children in the same context

Author should provide limitations and strength of this study (those provided are not enough especially limitations)

which clinical, political and social implications have these results?

English editing required

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Francesco Di Gennaro

Reviewer #2: No

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Magnitude of underweight, wasting and stunting among HIV positive children in East Africa: a systematic review and meta-analysis

PONE-D-20-09693R1

Dear Dr. Biruk Beletew,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Claudia Marotta

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Dear Authors,

you have written a very interesting article

Congratulations

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

6. 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: Authors improved their manuscript. the interaction between authors and reviewers was effective and useful in order to improve the manuscript and give the scientific community a very relevant article on a highly topical issue. I think that can be accepted

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Francesco Di Gennaro

Reviewer #2: No