Risk factors for diagnosis and treatment delay among patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in Hunan Province, China.

"Declarations Ethics approval and consent to participateThe Curtin University Human Research Ethics Committee obtained ethical approval, and the Hunan TB Control Institute provided written informed consent for all study subjects. Due to the retrospective nature of the data, it is not practicable to obtain consent directly from study subjects. As a result, the informed consent was waived by the ethics committee of Hunan research ethics. Medical records of study subjects were de-identified and password-protected to maintain patient confidentiality. The study was conducted according to the Declaration of Helsinki. Consent for publicationNot required. Competing interestsThe authors declare no competing interests. Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests."

"Funding The National Health and Medical Research Council funds KAA, and the Curtin University Higher Degree Research (HDR) Scholarship also supports TYA. The funders had no role in the study design, publication decision, or manuscript preparation."