Retraction Note: European Journal of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (2020) 40:407–411

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10096-020-04016-1

The Editor-in-Chief has retracted this article. Concerns about the methodology were raised in a Letter to the Editor [1] and the authors responded [2]. Upon further assessment of the Letter and the authors' response, the Editor-in-Chief no longer has confidence in the veracity of the conclusions. In particular, although this was a clinical trial, there was a lack of an appropriate control group. In addition, consent for participation in this study was waived. However, the Editor-in-Chief does not consider a waiver to be appropriate for a study of this nature.

Author Ferhat Arslan agrees with this retraction. Authors Yasemin Cag, Sacit Icten, Hasan Kocoglu, Sinan Uzman and Mahmut Tayyar Kalcioglu disagree with this retraction. The other authors have not responded to correspondence regarding this retraction.