Bacteriological quality and antimicrobial susceptibility profiles of isolates of ready-to-eat raw minced meat from hotels and restaurants in Arba Minch, Ethiopia

Tomas Tonjo; Aseer Manilal; Mohammed Seid

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0273790

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionApril 17, 2022
12 Jul 2022 Decision Letter - Jasbir Singh Bedi, Editor PONE-D-22-11268Bacteriological quality and antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of isolates of ready-to-eat raw minced meat from hotels and restaurants in Arba Minch, EthiopiaPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Manilal, 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 submit your revised manuscript by 31.07.2022. 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. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. 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(Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: The manuscript PONE-D-22-11268 entitled “Bacteriological quality and antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of isolates of ready-to eat raw minced meat from hotels and restaurants in Arba Minch, Ethiopia” provides insights into the bacteriological quality of ready-to-eat raw minced meat in Arba Minch in Eithopia. It is worth mentioning that this type of study is important in places where people consume raw meat also as is the case in cuurent scenario. The study is all the more important as many isolates were multi drug resistance which is a grim situation. However, the manuscript has some major lacunae and shortcomings, which should be considered before its approval. Confirmation of isolates by biochemical characterization and molecular tests is very important, including identification of pathogenic isolates of the bacteria. The discussion is not adequately written. ****** 6. 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Revision 1
29 Jul 2022 Author Response Response to the reviewer Comment The manuscript PONE-D-22-11268 entitled “Bacteriological quality and antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of isolates of ready-to eat raw minced meat from hotels and restaurants in Arba Minch, Ethiopia” provides insights into the bacteriological quality of ready-to-eat raw minced meat in Arba Minch in Eithopia. It is worth mentioning that this type of study is important in places where people consume raw meat also as is the case in cuurent scenario. The study is all the more important as many isolates were multi drug resistance which is a grim situation. However, the manuscript has some major lacunae and shortcomings, which should be considered before its approval. Response- Thanks for your encouraging Comments. We have revised the manuscript substantially as per your Comments and suggestions Comment Abstract: Make it more concise, staring from a cross sectional study…Include lines on MDR and MRSA also. Response-Thanks for your valuable Comment. The abstract part is substantially revised and included a line on MDR and MRSA as per your suggestion. Comment INTRODUCTION The Introduction includes many grammatical errors. The following sentences need to re-written as below. Response- Thanks for your valid support. The introduction part is revised as per your direction. Comment Line 57: Ethiopia ranks second after Nigeria in this regard and FBDs pose a serious threat to the health of the people in the country. Response- FBDs is included Comment Line 67: The most common source of the bacterial causes of diarrheal diseases via meat chains is food of animal origin, environment, meat handlers/processors and processing equipment. Response- Corrected in the revised manuscript Comment Line 69: Even though the source of the bacteria varies, raw meat is one of food of animal origin which has been confirmed as one of the common vehicles of foodborne diseases. Response- Corrected in the revised manuscript Comment Line 72: Moreover, The most common food safety problems ……. Response-Corrected Comment Line 78: Transmission of these resistant bacteria to humans via meat is most evident ……… Response-Corrected Comment Line 84: The problem is even more alarming in developing countries, where there is an enormous burden of infectious diseases, accompanied by lack of surveillance networks, paucity of testing laboratories, and inadequate diagnostics. Response- Corrected Comment Line 87: Although healthy meat from beef cattle, sheep and goat … Response- Corrected Comment Line 91: The general masses comprising all age groups of the study area, Arba Minch town…. Response- Corrected Comment Line 93: Nevertheless, many hotels and restaurants are also serving ready-to-eat raw meats, without assessing its bacteriological quality, which is further aggravated by lack food safety and inspection department in the town. Response-Corrected Comment Line 95: Literature survey indicates that studies in this context are sorely lacking. Response -Corrected Comment MATERIALS AND METHODS The study was carried out for a period of six months. However, the samples were collected for only 2.5 months and that too has been wrongly mentioned as 01 July to 31 Oct (Line 116), which comes out to be four months. Kindly rectify it and remain consistent throughout the text and tables for the period of study. Response- Corrected as 6 months 01 July to 31 December throughout the manuscript to keep the consistency Comment Line 105: The number of animals slaughtered per day varied from time to time, for instance, during fasting, festival and non-fasting periods. Response - Corrected Comment Line 106: The average number of cattle slaughtered per month approximates to 600 excluding sheep and goats. Response-Corrected Comment Line 109: Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the Institutional Review Board of College of Medicine and Health Science, Arba Minch, Eithopia (Ref. No IRB/174/12/17/03/2020). Response- Corrected Comment Line 117: A total of 260 samples were randomly collected comprising 170 beef, 50 sheep and 40 goat meat samples. Response- Corrected Comment Line 118: One beef sample and two samples from goat meat…………….. Response-Corrected Comment Line 122: Rewrite Response-Corrected Comment Line 125: Inclusion criterion was RTE raw minced meat (regional name of RTE: Kurt/Kitfo) that is processed for direct consumption, whereas the exclusion criterion was minced meat that is processed for cooking. Response -Corrected Comment Line 130: Collected samples were drawn (from where…………..??????) by sterile tweezers and placed in a sterile plastic bag and immediately transported in ice box to the Medical Microbiology and Parasitology Laboratory, Department of Medical Laboratory Science for bacteriological analysis, within 2 h of collection. Response-Corrected Comment Line 141: After incubation, plates showing between 30 and 300 colonies were counted and the results were calculated according to ISO 7218:2007 using the following formula [15] This ISO standard has been revised and the annex D pertains to Salmonella. The reference and the formula needs to be cross checked. Response- Reference and formula is cross-checked and updated reference has been given in the revised manuscript Comment Line 153: The pdf file of reference 16 to be furnished please. Moreover, it’s a very old reference, maybe substituted with latest available. Response-Corrected Comment Line 155: About 0.1ml from each dilution was spread on to the such as MaConkey agar and mannitol salt agar (Himedia, India) for the total coliform count and S. aureus count respectively and incubated at 37°C for 24 hours. Response-Corrected Comment Line 159 and 164: use were instead of was Response-Corrected Comment Line 171: S. aureus in italics Response-Corrected Comment Line 183: Included Response-Corrected Comment Line 196-197: Salmonella Typhimurium Response-Corrected Comment Overall the data is poorly presented in the results. Response-Thanks for your valuable Comment Comment Line 215: On the contrary, respectively, 13.2% (n=34), 17.5% (n=45) and 17.5% (n=45) of meat samples had unacceptable ranges of bacteriological load with respect to TVC, TCC and TSC, respectively. The word respectively has been wrongly written in the middle of the sentences at many places throughout the text. It should be mentioned at the end of the sentence (where ever required) after putting a comma. Should be changed and corrected throughout. Response- The word respectively has been shifted to the end of the line where and when required. Comment Line 218: The most alarming factor is that, 10.5% (n=4), 8% (n=4) and 1.8% (n=3) of beef, sheep and goat meat 219 samples respectively were contaminated with S. aureus and their TSC loads remained in a 220 potentially harmful range (Table 1)…. These figures donot match with the figures quoted against different species in Table No. 1 Response- Corrected in the revised manuscript Comment- Line 221: were inplace of are and was inplace of is… correct the entire text for the grammatical errors..It has to be presented in past tense rather than present. Response- Corrected Comment Line 223: use permissible instead of permitted Response- Corrected Comment Line 245: six Response- corrected Comment Line 247: correct spellings of susceptibility Response – Corrected Comment Line 258: In case of E. coli isolates, a higher degree…………… Response- corrected Comment Line 269: 51% Response-corrected Comment Try replacing sheep and goat meats by mutton and chevon, respectively in text. Response-Replaced in the revised manuscript where and when required Comment Table No.2 How can the TCC and TSC values for beef be lesser than sheep and goat meats, when the TVC is on the higher side? Response-Replaced in the revised manuscript where and when required Comment Confirmation of isolates by biochemical characterization and molecular tests is very important, including identification of pathogenic isolates of the bacteria. Response- Thanks for your invaluable Comment. However, due to the lack of infrastructure and facility, we are unable to perform molecular detection of genes. This is included under the limitation as per your suggestions. Comment DISCUSSION The discussion is not adequately written. The first page is a repetition of the results only. Simply comparisons have been made with other references in Eithopia. Only one global reference is there, which is Nepal. Comparison of the finding in meat may be done with that of human and animal prevalence too. Risk factors maybe identified to justify the statements made. The discussion on AMR and MRSA should be more focused. Response- Thanks for your Comment. We have extensively modified the discussion part by including relevant references, ie. 10, where and when required. Risk factors are included in the discussion. AMR and MRSA discussed in the revised manuscript. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273790.r002
16 Aug 2022 Decision Letter - Jasbir Singh Bedi, Editor Bacteriological quality and antimicrobial susceptibility profiles of isolates of ready-to-eat raw minced meat from hotels and restaurants in Arba Minch, Ethiopia PONE-D-22-11268R1 Dear Dr. Asser 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, Jasbir Singh Bedi Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273790.r003
Formally Accepted
24 Aug 2022 Acceptance Letter - Jasbir Singh Bedi, Editor PONE-D-22-11268R1 Bacteriological quality and antimicrobial susceptibility profiles of isolates of ready-to-eat raw minced meat from hotels and restaurants in Arba Minch, Ethiopia Dear Dr. Manilal: 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. Jasbir Singh Bedi Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273790.r004

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