Author's response to reviews Title:Are women with complications of an incomplete abortion more likely to be HIV infected than women without complications? Authors:

2. Page 2/28Seems to be a big statement. I am not sure it is supported by existing evidence or justified from the literature review. Response: We thank the reviewer for this comment. In addition to generally strengthening the background, we revised this statement to read “There is limited published evidence about the status of HIV among women who have had abortions or suffered from abortion complications. 3. Page 2/44; the results sections should present some data on how many women were in each group. How many were in the different status (Positive, negative and status unknown). The abstract should be able to stand on its own and present relevant data. Response: We thank the reviewer for this suggestion. We have added information to the results section of the abstract to include how many women were in each group. How many were in the different status (Positive, negative and status unknown) as follows: “Of 139 women enrolled in this study. Seventy (50.4%) women had abortion complications and 69 (49.6%) did not. Of the total study population, 18 (12.9%) were HIV positive, 50 (36.0 %) were HIV negative, and the HIV status of 71 women (51.1%) was unknown.” 4. Page 3/59In some ways the conclusion is written like the results section. Please use similar language to that used in the main paper. Avoiding words such as “three folds higher odds Response: We thank the reviewer for this suggestion. We have revised the conclusion section of the abstract to exclude the sentences describing study results.