Incidence and predictors of tuberculosis among HIV-infected children after initiation of antiretroviral therapy in Ethiopia: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Amare Kassaw; Worku Necho Asferie; Molla Azmeraw; Demewoz Kefale; Gashaw Kerebih; Gebrehiwot Berie Mekonnen; Fikadie Dagnew Baye; Shegaw Zeleke; Biruk Beletew; Solomon Demis Kebede; Tigabu Munye Aytenew; Lakachew Yismaw Bazezew; Muluken Chanie Agimas

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0306651

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionFebruary 8, 2024
2 Apr 2024 Decision Letter - Zewdu Gashu Dememew, Editor PONE-D-24-05371Incidence and predictors of tuberculosis among HIV-infected children after initiation of antiretroviral therapy in Ethiopia: A systematic review and meta-analysis.PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Kassaw, 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 May 18 2024 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. 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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The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Additional Editor Comments: Dear Authors, Congratulation to come up with this very relevant manuscript of childhood TB among HIV infected children on ART in Ethiopia. It is well narrated, reviewed, analyzed and discussed. Please just attend to a few comments from the one of the revue Regards [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: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: 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 Reviewer #2: 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: No Reviewer #2: 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: • The publication by Amare Kassaw1 et al “Incidence and predictors of tuberculosis among HIV-infected children after initiation of antiretroviral therapy in Ethiopia: A systematic review and meta-analysis’, was read and reviewed with great passion and sincerity. I note that this study was registered in PROSPERO on 06/07/2023 with registration number CRD42023439555 as required of systematic reviews. • The critical appraisal was done using the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) quality assessment checklist for cohort studies as seen in the attached S2 document. This implies that high quality studies were considered since JBI is more sensitive than both CASP and ETQS. This however is dependent on the level of expertise since JBI is not user friendly for students. • The authors do not provide a detailed explanation of eliminated studies and their disqualifying reasons. This could lead to elimination of relevant and useful studies. The authors could use reference manager to avoid deleting duplicates by one category say author’s name or year of publication. • I note that the review considered only published articles in open access journals and went ahead to acknowledge the authors of the primary articles considered. I also note that no systematic review has ever analyzed or critiqued the used articles. • The authors used the random effects model to do the meta-analysis which gives weight smaller but relevant studies which isn’t the case for the fixed effects model. • The article has got a few grammatical errors (especially mixed use of upper & lower cases in the authors’ addresses) which I feel should be harmonized before its publication, either by use of an expert librarian or any other English language expert. • I confirm that I have read this submission and can say without doubt that it is of an acceptable scientific and ethical standard for publishing in Plos one. Reviewer #2: The Manuscript meets all the necessary guidelines to satisfy the PLOS ONE criteria for publication. The analysis is performed approriately and presented in an intelligent manner in addition to fulfilling all the other criteria. It is from this basis that I recommend publication of the manuscript. ****** 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: Yes: IVAN AHIMBISIBWE Reviewer #2: Yes: Victor Draman Afayo ******** [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. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Feedback_Amare_childhhod TB.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0306651.r001
Revision 1
10 Apr 2024 Author Response Response to Reviewers and Academic editor Point by point responses We would like to take this opportunity to thank the reviewers and editor for sharing their view and constructive comments. The comments were very important which further improves the quality of our manuscript. The point-by-point responses for each of the comments are provided in the following pages. Our responses are written in blue font color. # Journal requirements 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming Authors’ Response We are grateful to this comment of technical relevance. Thus, we have ensured that our manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming 2. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Authors’ Response The authors are very grateful of these constructive comments. After read the reference lists carefully, we made some correction and addressed the incomplete one. We are sure that we have not cited retracted references, almost all references are recent. Additional Editor Comments: # Congratulation to come up with this very relevant manuscript of childhood TB among HIV infected children on ART in Ethiopia. It is well narrated, reviewed, analyzed and discussed. Please just attend to a few comments from the one of the revue. Authors’ Response Dear editor, really thank you very much for your constructive comments that makes us strive for further relevant works and contribution of our future career in the field. Response to Reviewer #1 comments 1. The authors do not provide a detailed explanation of eliminated studies and their disqualifying reasons. This could lead to elimination of relevant and useful studies. The authors could use reference manager to avoid deleting duplicates by one category say author’s name or year of publication. Authors’ Response First of all, we thank you the reviewer for his constructive comments and suggestions. The authors had used EndNote X8 reference manager/citation manager to screen the included studies consciously. After export the search result to EndNote X8 software, the authors used to screen orderly based on the title, abstract, full text, setting, population etc. We worked on carefully to include all the relevant studies. Moreover the authors tried to show the detail of explanation how to screen studies in Figure 1 of page 7. 2. The article has got a few grammatical errors (especially mixed use of upper & lower cases in the authors’ addresses) which I feel should be harmonized before its publication, either by use of an expert librarian or any other English language expert. Authors’ Response We accepted the comment and correct on the revised manuscript. After we have read carefully through the whole document, we properly addressed the concerned issues. Reviewer #2: The Manuscript meets all the necessary guidelines to satisfy the PLOS ONE criteria for publication. The analysis is performed appropriately and presented in an intelligent manner in addition to fulfilling all the other criteria. It is from this basis that I recommend publication of the manuscript Authors’ Response Really thank you very much. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0306651.r002
21 Jun 2024 Decision Letter - Mengistu Hailemariam Zenebe, Editor Incidence and predictors of tuberculosis among HIV-infected children after initiation of antiretroviral therapy in Ethiopia: A systematic review and meta-analysis. PONE-D-24-05371R1 Dear Author, Thank you for the correction on the given comments 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 will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, 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, Mengistu Hailemariam Zenebe, PhD 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: All questions have been fully addressed. Thank you for all this hard work ****** 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: IVAN AHIMBISIBWE ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0306651.r003
Formally Accepted
25 Jun 2024 Acceptance Letter - Mengistu Hailemariam Zenebe, Editor PONE-D-24-05371R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Kassaw, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset If revisions are needed, the production department will contact you directly to resolve them. If no revisions are needed, you will receive an email when the publication date has been set. At this time, we do not offer pre-publication proofs to authors during production of the accepted work. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few weeks to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, 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 customercare@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. Mengistu Hailemariam Zenebe Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0306651.r004

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