Impact of ultraviolet germicidal irradiation on new silicone half-piece elastometric respirator (VJR-NMU) performance, structural integrity and sterility during the COVID-19 pandemic

Thananda Trakarnvanich; Uraporn Phumisantiphong; Sujaree Pupipatpab; Chayanee Setthabramote; Bunpot Seakow; Supanit Porntheeraphat; Jakravoot Maneerit; Anan Manomaipiboon

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0258245

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionApril 7, 2021
5 Aug 2021 Decision Letter - Prasenjit Mitra, Editor PONE-D-21-10415 Impact of ultraviolet germicidal irradiation on new silicone half-piece elastometric repirator (VJR-NMU) performance,structural integrity and sterility during the COVID-19 pandemic PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Trakarnvanich, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please go through the manuscript and revise accordingly. Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 19 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. 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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 ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 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 ****** 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 ****** 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: Thank you very much for your efforts in the manuscript which may add benefits to health caregivers especially in low economic countries to help in the pandemic era Please i need your explanation about these points Is it better to use a new HEPA Filter if it is available? Alcohol 70 % may affect on the effectiveness of HEPA filter It is difficult to remove accumulated fine particles in HEPA filter ****** 6. 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: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258245.r001
Revision 1
12 Aug 2021 Author Response RESPONSE TO REVIEWER COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS Thank you for the opportunity to respond to the editors’ and reviewers’ comments on our revised manuscript. Our responses are provided after each comment. We hope that these extensive changes, based on their critiques, make this manuscript suitable for publication in PLoS one. COMMENTS FOR THE AUTHOR: 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. Authors’ response: Thank you for your comments. We have revised the manuscript style according to the journal’s requirement. 2. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. Authors’ response: Thank you for your comments.We reviewed all the references and found no retracted references. 3. Your reasons for your delay in registering this study (after enrolment of participants started) Authors’ response: Thank you for your comments. The registration was done after enrolment of participants due to the difficulty of the viral culture in our lab and the possibility of changing the protocol.After adjustment and improvement in nutrient media and uneventful protocol,the registration was performed. We already described the reason for the delay registration in the manuscript. 4. We note that you have stated that you will provide repository information for your data at acceptance. Should your manuscript be accepted for publication, we will hold it until you provide the relevant accession numbers or DOIs necessary to access your data. Authors’ response : Thank you for your comments.The repository data was added in the Appendix section in the supplemental file.We will make change to our Data Availability statement in the cover letter. 5.PLOS ONE now requires that authors provide the original uncropped and unadjusted images underlying all blot or gel results reported in a submission’s figures or Supporting Information files. Authors’ response : Thank you for your comments.Almost all figures in this manuscript are photos taken from our lab.The exception are Fig 11 in the manuscript and S3 Fig in the supplemental file that will be sent together in original files.All of these changes will be mentioned in the cover letter. 6. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Authors’ response : Thank you for your comments.All the captions were added at the end of the manuscript and cited in the text to match accordingly. Review Comments to the Author - Is it better to use a new HEPA Filter if it is available? Authors’ response Thank you for your comments If there is enough and available new HEPA Filter, it is definitely better to use the new one.However,due to the high cost of the HEPA filter and short supply,we try to find the easiest and safe way to decontaminate them. - Alcohol 70 % may affect on the effectiveness of HEPA filter Authors’ response Thank you for your comments. HEPA filters are made of thin fibers of glass, and contain some level of activated carbon-based material.Therefore it should not be affected by alcohol 70%/ - It is difficult to remove accumulated fine particles in HEPA filter Authors’ response Thank you for your comments. If the particulate is dense ,removal will be difficult especially with the HEPA filter from SafeStar (Draeger,Germany).However,our another experiment with new version of our HEPA filter showed that the HEPA filter can be used up to one month and the accumulated fine particles are easily removed Day Air flow (LPM) Filtration efficiency (%) 1 320.56 99.71 1 320.56 99.81 2 335.83 99.75 3 335.83 99.55 4 335.83 99.38 5 351.09 99.87 6 335.83 99.86 7 335.83 99.94 8 305.30 99.97 9 335.83 99.89 10 274.77 99.67 11 259.50 99.65 12 259.50 99.52 13 259.50 99.39 14 274.77 99.84 15 236.61 99.79 16 224.393844 99.96 17 222.8673553 99.91 18 221.3408665 99.87 19 219.8143778 99.86 20 219.8143778 99.90 21 219.8143778 99.83 22 219.8143778 99.89 23 219.8143778 99.85 24 219.8143778 99.80 25 219.8143778 99.87 26 219.8143778 99.92 27 210.6554454 99.85 28 210.6554454 99.90 29 210.6554454 99.87 30 210.6554454 99.76 I have removed the previous blot,gel figure since our team used the crop figure and did not save the file.Therefore,this figure did not meet the Journal' s requirement I hope this revision will answer and fulfil the reviewer and the Editor’s suggestion. Sincerely, Thananda Trakarnvanich M.D. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to the comment reuse N99.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258245.r002
23 Sep 2021 Decision Letter - Prasenjit Mitra, Editor Impact of ultraviolet germicidal irradiation on new silicone half-piece elastometric repirator (VJR-NMU) performance,structural integrity and sterility during the COVID-19 pandemic PONE-D-21-10415R1 Dear Dr. Trakarnvanich, 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. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Prasenjit Mitra, MD, CBiol, MRSB, MIScT, FLS, FACSc, FAACC Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): 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 ******** 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: No Comments, all comments have been addressed The authors answered all questions The reviewer requests have been modified ****** 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: No https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258245.r003
Formally Accepted
1 Oct 2021 Acceptance Letter - Prasenjit Mitra, Editor PONE-D-21-10415R1 Impact of ultraviolet germicidal irradiation on new silicone half-piece elastometric respirator (VJR-NMU) performance, structural integrity and sterility during the COVID-19 pandemic Dear Dr. Trakarnvanich: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Prasenjit Mitra Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258245.r004

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