About the Authors

Josef Yayan

josef.yayan@hotmail.com

Affiliation Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Sleep Medicine, HELIOS Clinic, Wuppertal, Germany

Beniam Ghebremedhin

Affiliation Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Institute of Medical Laboratory Diagnostics, Center for Clinical and Translational Research, HELIOS Clinic, Wuppertal, Germany

Kurt Rasche

Affiliation Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Sleep Medicine, HELIOS Clinic, Wuppertal, Germany

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: JY. Performed the experiments: JY. Analyzed the data: JY. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: JY. Wrote the paper: JY. Microbiological testing: BG. Proofread the manuscript: BG KR.