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Article History

Received: 2 August 2024

Accepted: 31 October 2024

First Online: 13 November 2024

Declarations

:

: The Scientific Coordinating Committee of the MRC Unit The Gambia at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) reviewed and approved this study. The Gambian Ethics Committee and the LSHTM Observational/Interventions Ethics Committee (Ref: 26658) provided ethical approval. This study was conducted in accordance with the ethical principles outlined in the Belmont Report and the Declaration of Helsinki.All participants gave informed consent, and the communities were sensitised on the aims and objectives of the study prior to beginning the interviews. Before the start of every interview a consent form was read aloud in the preferred language to the participant by the fieldworker, who also answered any questions the participant had. Each participant provided written consent. Participants who were not literate provided thumbprints and an impartial witness was present throughout the consenting process who also provided their signature or thumbprint. All identifiers were removed during the transcription process and unique identifiers were used to store all files.

: Not applicable. All information presented in this manuscript has been anonymised and consent was obtained from all participants to share de-identified information from the interviews in publications (as described in the Ethics approval and consent to participate section).

: The authors declare no competing interests.