* Reference ranges should be established for population-specific and age-dependent conditions to avoid any potential bias in interpreting the results.
Declarations
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the Clinical Immunology Centre (CIC) team from Hospital Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah (HSAAS), Universiti Putra Malaysia for their excellent technical assistance.
Author contributions
JJ: Methodology, Writing—original draft. SMM: Writing—review & editing, Supervision. IHI: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing. All authors read and approved the submitted version.
Conflicts of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Ethical approval
This study protocol was reviewed and approved by the National Medical Research Register (NMRR-19-2299-49077), Medical Research & Ethics Committee (MREC), Ministry of Health Malaysia and Ethics Committee for Research Involving Human Subject, Universiti Putra Malaysia (JKEUPM-2023-337), in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki (2013).
Consent to participate
Written informed consent will be obtained from all the parents/guardians of the children prior to any procedures.
Consent to publication
Not applicable.
Availability of data and materials
All data presented or cited in this study were traceable directly to the reference sources.
Funding
This protocol was funded by the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FGRS/1/2018/SKK02/UPM/02/1, 04-01-18-1973FR), Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia and Geran Inisiatif Putra Siswazah (GP-IPS/2022/9739900), Universiti Putra Malaysia. Both funders had no role in protocol setup, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Open Exploration maintains a neutral stance on jurisdictional claims in published institutional affiliations and maps. All opinions expressed in this article are the personal views of the author(s) and do not represent the stance of the editorial team or the publisher.
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