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Article History

Received: 15 October 2019

Accepted: 6 August 2020

First Online: 7 September 2020

Ethics approval and consent to participate

: This study was carried out in “The human biomonitoring project to measure the exposure of gold miners in Zimbabwe” by the Unit Global Environmental Health located at the Institute and Clinic for Occupational, Social and Environmental Medicine at University Hospital Munich in cooperation with the principal investigator Dr. Moyo from Baines Occupational and Travel Medicine Centre and Midlands State University (Zimbabwe). The country’s specific regulations and demands for performing the study were fulfilled. The relevant health authorities at regional and district level and the Zimbabwean Ministry of Health gave their permissions to conduct the study. The study was conducted in accordance with the Code of Ethics of the Declaration of Helsinki for experiments involving human subjects. Ethical approval was obtained from the ethics committee of the Medical Research Council and the Research Council of Zimbabwe (MRCZ/A/2367, 26 September 2018 and 25 February 2019) and from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Germany (18–421, 15 October 2018).At all time, it was ensured that participants volunteered to participate and understood the patient information and the consent forms. More details can be found in the methods section of this study.

: Not applicable.

: The authors declare that they have no competing interest.