Prevalence and Antimicrobial Sensitivity Patterns of Uropathogens in Wad Medani, Sudan: A Three Year, Cross-Sectional Study [Response to Letter]

Dear editor

We appreciate the Akollo review’s thorough and constructive comments on our work, “Prevalence and Antimicrobial Sensitivity Patterns of Uropathogens in Wad Medani, Sudan: A Three Year, Cross-Sectional Study”. We have given careful thought to every criticism. The following outlines our responses to the main points raised by the reviewers:

Concerning the first point: Firstly, our study was retrospective; one of the most important disadvantages of this study design is missed data. Secondly, our study was laboratory-based; the data were obtained from investigation reports rather than patient records, and we clearly covered this point in the limitations section of our study. Therefore, controlling these confounding factors is more applicable in prospective studies.

Concerning the second point: we agree that uropathogens exhibit temporal trends or seasonal variations. Given that our study was conducted in Sudan, which is one of the sub-Saharan African countries where there is climatic change and overlapping seasons, it is challenging to determine the exact dates of the seasons. As an alternative, we examined uropathogens that were isolated based on survey years in order to identify any changes that might have happened.

Once again, we appreciate your insightful comments.