Acknowledgments
We thank the whole team at the study’s participating facilities for their support in patient recruiting as well as their logistical and administrative assistance. In addition, we want to thank everyone who agreed to take part in the study. We extend our special thanks to Tanu Midha of G.S.V.M. Medical College, Kanpur, for her diligent efforts and professional assistance throughout the statistical analysis of the article. We acknowledge Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) for enabling this study.
Author contributions
MM: Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Software, Visualization, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing. PT: Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing. PS: Methodology. YKR: Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing—review & editing. DDS: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing—Review & Editing.
Ethical approval
Ethical approval has been obtained from the Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC), G.S.V.M. Medical College, Kanpur. No. EC/139/August/2021, dated August 25, 2021.
Availability of data and materials
The raw data supporting the conclusions of this manuscript will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation, to any qualified researcher.
Funding
The authors acknowledge the Indian Council of Medical Research Senior Research Fellowship grant [No. 3/1/2/241/2021-Nut], Department of Science & Technology-Fund for Improvement of Science &Technology Infrastructure in Universities and Higher Educational Institutions (DST-FIST) grant [SR/FIST/LS-1/2019/502], and Department of Science & Technology -Promotion of University Research and Scientific Excellence (DST-PURSE) grant [SR/PURSE/2021/77] at Amity University, Rajasthan, Jaipur, India. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.