Review History


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Summary

  • The initial submission of this article was received on September 22nd, 2023 and was peer-reviewed by 3 reviewers and the Academic Editor.
  • The Academic Editor made their initial decision on December 4th, 2023.
  • The first revision was submitted on July 8th, 2024 and was reviewed by 2 reviewers and the Academic Editor.
  • The article was Accepted by the Academic Editor on August 13th, 2024.

Version 0.2 (accepted)

· Aug 13, 2024 · Academic Editor

Accept

Thank you for addressing all the reviewer's comments and submitting the revised manuscript.

[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Konstantinos Kormas, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]

·

Basic reporting

The author has improved the manuscript and corrected and revised it thoroughly to make the manuscript better for the reader. I would recommend the paper to be published in the current format.

Experimental design

no comment

Validity of the findings

no comment

Reviewer 3 ·

Basic reporting

I think that it improved the clarity of the paper very much.

Experimental design

Authors' revision greatly contributes to the readability of this very interesting paper.

Validity of the findings

The quality of the paper has improved substantially.

Additional comments

N.A.

Version 0.1 (original submission)

· Dec 4, 2023 · Academic Editor

Minor Revisions

Please respond to all the reviewer's comments.

** Additional PeerJ Staff Note: We note the Rev 1 comment: "The article seems to be a copy of "Bacterial Coinfections in Coronavirus Disease 2019" by Westblade et al, Trends in microbiology." - therefore please be sure to explain in your rebuttal (and where appropriate in the manuscript) how these papers differ **

·

Basic reporting

The authors did an excellent effort to review regarding specific topic. The data it could be summarize in tables/figures. The significant of each section need to be highlighted, so the readers could easily found something new and important. The flow of methodology could be develop by flowchart to make it easier.

Experimental design

Study design is well explained, however the result of articles collected, articles rejected and articles included is need to be detailed in methodology section.

Validity of the findings

I think that the authors may establish educational assumptions after all references is well analyzed, it is increasing the novelty of this study

Additional comments

The study is an important review of bacterial co-infection of COVID-19, may add insight to health care personnel, the healthcare managers and decision makers, if highlighted finding is established by authors. Number of words is too many.

·

Basic reporting

The author discussed coinfection’s role after COVID-19 infection in the present review. The author has addressed the role of bacteria and fungi in respiratory tract infection, Ventilator-associated pneumonia, blood infection, and antimicrobial resistance in co-infection or after COVID-19 infectio. There is an unconvincing presentation of the review, and seems to be a copy of an article published previously.

1. The article seems to be a copy of "Bacterial Coinfections in Coronavirus Disease 2019" by Westblade et al, Trends in microbiology.
2. In line 55, the author discussed the upper respiratory tract infection with bacteria, which also infect the lower respiratory tract infection (lungs). Instead of saying upper respiratory tract, the author should use the correct way, such as respiratory tract infection.
3. In line 77, referencing as CDC 2022 is confusing better give a reference for the CDC 2022.
4. (96) The Author should concentrate on their paper analysis; mentioning other journals is optional.
5. (106-112) Discussion of non-analyzed data for bacterial pathogenesis in COVID-19 patients is not required.
6. (137) “Main bacterial species associated with co-infection in COVID-19 patients” title is misleading as the fungi are also included in the title
7. (137) “Main bacterial species associated with co-infection in COVID-19 patients”. The author should directly discuss these in the section on antimicrobial resistance or BSI or VAP pathogenesis. This section (137) is not required.
8. The author has discussed the role of gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria in the latter part of the paper; it would be better if they discussed the review for gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria while discussing earlier data.
9. The paper needs to be better written.
10. The manuscript needs significant editing to improve English grammar and flow.

Experimental design

The manuscript lacks a proper table to present the findings and statistics.

Validity of the findings

The article seems to be a copy of "Bacterial Coinfections in Coronavirus Disease 2019" by Westblade et al, Trends in microbiology.

Reviewer 3 ·

Basic reporting

no comment

Experimental design

no comment

Validity of the findings

no comment

Additional comments

Liu and his colleagues conducted a review study on bacterial infections in the respiratory system and blood of patients with COVID-19. They highlighted the significance of microbial co-infection by referencing various microbiological studies conducted on patients with COVID-19.
The paper is well written, and is relevant. However, the manuscript need some further revision. My comments are as below:
1. In Lines 143-145, “Another study reported that the rates of co-infection and secondary infection in patients with COVID-19 ranged from as low as 0.6% to as high as 45%(Lai et al., 2020).” While many other works reported a higher bacterial coinfection proportion among SARS-CoV-2 patients, for example, 55.4% Staphylococcus aureus, 19.4% Moraxella catarrhalis, and/or 3.8% Klebsiella pneumonia.(https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2020.02079). It’s proper to discuss these results in the manuscript.
2. The authors primarily collected data from patients with COVID-19 during 2020-2021. However, the current prevalent strain is Omicron, which differs significantly from previous strains. Can the authors compare the data on bacterial infections with the rise in Omicron infections? In addition, the wave of epidemics in China that occurred from December 2022 to January 2023 was the largest simultaneous infection by Omicron BA5.2/BF7event ever recorded in the world within a short time frame. It is important to include this data in the study.
3. The authors mentioned several microbiological studies conducted on patients with COVID-19. However, they did not conduct further analysis to identify the specific types and proportions of bacteria responsible for community-acquired pneumonia and nosocomial infections in these cases. Additionally, they did not consider the historical prevalence of bacterial conditions during the specific period when these cases occurred. It would be of interest to readers to understand whether the occurrence of COVID-19 has influenced the prevalence of different types of bacteria in the local area.
4. Lines 225, 267, 392 These titles should be bold.

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