PONE-D-20-16100

Nearly one in every six children lost from ART follow-up at Debre Markos Referral Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia: A 14-year retrospective follow-up study

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Animut Alebel

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PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Dear Authors,

I appreciate a lot your manuscript.

Following reviewes suggestions the paper can be publish after minor revisions

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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: Yes

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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: Yes

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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: 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: Authors written a very interesting article on a vunerable population (childeren) in a fragile setting .

Only some suggestion:

1. Introduction: well wrote, introduce the concept of children at risk (cite this article. 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. Published 2018) that explain the role also of the research on this issue. Als see this article e Schacht C, Lucas C, Mboa C, et al. Access to HIV prevention and care for HIV-exposed and HIV-infected children: a qualitative study in rural and urban Mozambique. BMC Public Health. 2014;14:1240. Published 2014 Dec 3.

2. Methods and Results: no comment.

3. Discussion: well. I f you can improve with a proposal. Why the children lost to follow up? discuss other experience as for example this in Mozambique (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.)

I consider it as an excellent article.

Reviewer #2: This institution-based retrospective follow-up study conducted among 408 HIV-infected children on ART at Debre Markos Referral Hospital between 2005 and March 15, 2019, has provided very important information or indicators for lost to follow up among kids enrolled in HIV treatment programs that could be generalized or applied to other settings within Ethiopia and countries with similar status. Lost to follow up is current a serious problem in the management of HIV treatment among adults and kids, putting together data to identify potential reasons for this in this setting is highly rewarding as it will definitely lead t implementation of strategies to address gaps identified. It is interesting to identify in the study that starting ART immediately or sooner after diagnosis following WHO recommendation is also a factor that influence lost to follow. Addressing should also impact national policy on the country’s treatment program. This study is highly recommended. Potential limitations, including not being able to include that of VL which could provided information to virally suppression status of these kids is nothing; something that should be considered in future studies.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Francesco Di Gennaro

Reviewer #2: No

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Nearly one in every six children lost from ART follow-up at Debre Markos Referral Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia: A 14-year retrospective follow-up study

PONE-D-20-16100R1

Dear Dr. Alebel,

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.

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Kind regards,

Claudia Marotta

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Dear Authors,

two different reviewers suggest to accept your manuscript.

I appreciate a lot element of your article: the long period-time of study (14ys), the setting (Ethiopia) and the idea research (child, HIV, lost to follw up)

Congratulations for your great job!

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

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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

**********

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

Reviewer #1: 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

**********

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

**********

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: Congratulations I appreciate a lot your article. I appreciate the methods and the idea reasearch.

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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: Di Gennaro Framcesco