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Article History

Received: 11 November 2024

Accepted: 15 July 2025

First Online: 13 August 2025

Declarations

:

: We obtained ethical approval from the University of Gondar’s Institutional Review Board with the reference number: VP/RTT/05/750/22, ensuring compliance with ethical standards in research involving human participants. To fully inform participants about the study, we provided a summary detailing the study’s purpose, along with informed consent forms for parents/caregivers and assent forms for children/adolescents. These documents were designed to be clear and comprehensive, ensuring that all participants and their guardians provided informed and voluntary consent before participation. The process of obtaining informed consent and assent was conducted in accordance with the ethical guidelines laid out by the Institutional Review Board, prioritizing participant understanding and voluntary participation. To ensure data privacy and security, all personal identifiers were removed from datasets before analysis. Hard copies of consent forms and clinical data were stored in locked cabinets accessible only to the core research team. Electronic data were password-protected and stored on encrypted devices. Data access was strictly limited to authorized personnel involved in the study. Furthermore, all data were anonymized during reporting to prevent identification of individual participants.

: Not applicable.

: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.