Dr. Body disclosed having received past donations of research supplies from diagnostics firms owned by Roche, Siemens, and Alere, along with travel reimbursements from Roche and Randox.
The study was funded by Alere Medical, a maker of diagnostic tests and equipment, which provided grants and other direct funding to seven investigators and travel funding to eight others. Investigators in some countries received country-specific funding from other companies including Indonesian medical equipment maker, Medquest Jaya Global, and manufacturers Science International of Hong Kong, Bio Laboratories of Singapore and Progressive Group of Taiwan.
The sponsors had no role in the study or the report, the authors declared.