Article History
Received: 3 September 2020
Accepted: 16 July 2021
First Online: 10 August 2021
Declarations
: The authors have no disclosures to report.
: The author(s) declare that they have no competing interests.
: Ethical approvals were received from the Research Ethics Committee of the Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa (REC: 5/17/11/10); the Associate Director of Science of the National Centre for HIV and AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention at the USA’s CDC in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The study protocol has received by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) Research Ethics Committee (REC: 5/17/11/10) and by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In addition, the principle investigators of the study have received additional approval from the SABSSM data curation team on June 5, 2018. For the clinic-based data: Ethical approval for the trials, including all study protocols and informed consent forms, were received from the University of KwaZulu-Natal Biomedical Research Ethics Committee and the South African Medical Research Council Ethics Committee; the University of Cape Town Research Ethics Committee; and the South African Medicines Control Council as well as the various study-specific Institutional Review Boards.
: Study participants who enrolled in these studies provided either written or verbal consent. Participants confirmed their consent by signature or witnessed thumbprint.