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Article History

Received: 23 December 2017

Accepted: 13 December 2018

First Online: 27 December 2018

Ethics approval and consent to participate

: We obtained ethical approval from two ethics committees: the university of KwaZulu-Natal Human and Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee (Ref. HSS/0445/015D), where the researcher was a student and the University of Malawi, College of Medicine Research Ethics Committee (Ref. P03/15/1707) where the study was conducted. We obtained written informed consent from the patients prior to participation in the study which was translated into local language. We obtained verbal consent from health workers using the information sheet. This is in line with the National Health Sciences Research committee in Malawi under which College of Medicine Research Ethics Committee falls<i>:</i>. The committee adopted the International Ethical Guidelines for Health Related Research Involving Humans [].

: Consent for publication was not made because the data set present minimal risk to confidentiality of patient participants. This is because place of study (hospital name), dates of data collection related to the patient participants, age, symptoms and specific treatment name are not included. Only two indirect identifiers namely sex and diagnosis have been reported. Reporting of pneumonia diagnosis data was necessary because this is a common medical problem requiring improvement in antibiotic care in the hospital.

: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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