PONE-D-22-32222Semi-field evaluation of a volatile transfluthrin based intervention reveals efficacy as a spatial repellent and evidence of other modes of actionPLOS ONE

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PLOS ONE

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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: The trial is well drafted but needed proactive understanding of the concept to enable drawing appropriate objectives. As described by the authors, there are several limitations of the study that impact the results obtained and conclusions. Further tests need to be done to understand the concept. Also, using susceptible mosquito population alone wasn’t ideal in situation where the spread of pyrethroid resistance represents a challenge for vector control. Knowing that the PIRK used is a transfluthrin-based product and also volatile. However, the study is a start point for improvement and could support outdoor biting vector control.

Few edits below

L33: authors should better highlight or refer directly to ITNs and IRS when talking about indoor control tools.

L52: should be An. gambiae s.l. and An. funestus s.l.

L60: consider both early biting and late morning biting

L87: remove “in mind” and maybe add “including entomological outcomes”

L145: can you specify the starving duration? It should be known and same for all replicates. That can be stated.

L165: It was stated earlier that the mosquitoes were released at 18:00. Here too, the collection start at 18:00. Is that means the collectors were seated before release? Or after. In any case, I think they should be a time to allow the mosquitoes acclimate in the chamber and be ready to seek for blood feeding by moving towards the collectors. Kindly check and clarify.

L194: it should have been interesting to continue to adulthood to check any male vs female difference. Because missing that, the fertility data lack some interpretations.

L251: The deterrence calculation seems confusing. The denominator of each ratio or percentage should be explained further. Considering that part of the mosquitoes was already collected by HLC collectors, can you explain how the denominators were estimated? If 7033/7974 were recollected by HLC in control chambers, it should remain 941 mosquitoes. Same for the PIRK chambers

L257: Same issues as above for the knock down too. Need to be clarified how the numbers were used. Between HLC collected and the calculation of KD

L274-275: Kindly harmonize the decimal digits to 1 throughout.

L295: I think it should be rather not significant

Reviewer #2: This manuscript is well written, well thought out and executed. I have made a few small editorial suggestions on the manuscript itself, but I have one point that must be covered in the discussion.

The authors correctly assert the importance of dealing with outdoor transmission, but the experiment is performed with a highly endophilic species. The authors comment on Aedes, but I think it must be noted that An. arabiensis is an important member of the An. gambiae complex that is far more exophilic and more likely to be involved in outdoor transmission. As such, this species is an ideal target for spatial repellents to deal with outdoor biting. This should be mentioned. Furthermore, if there is any further information on the effect of transfluthrin, a pyrethroid, on pyrethroid resistant species, this must either be mentioned in the discussion, or the gap acknowledged.

Otherwise, a well-executed paper.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-22-32222_reviewer.pdf

Semi-field evaluation of a volatile transfluthrin based intervention reveals efficacy as a spatial repellent and evidence of other modes of action

PONE-D-22-32222R1

Dear Dr. Burton,

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,

Dziedzom Komi de Souza, Ph.D.

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

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: The authors have adequately addressed my comments. All others limitations of the study were already explained by the authors.

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: No

Reviewer #2: No

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