Prevalence of HIV Sero-discordance among Couples in Sub Saharan Africa, 2019, Systematic Review and Meta Analysis

Background: HIV/AIDS ranks among the world’s most devastating diseases because it spreads rapidly through sexualintercourse (90-95%) and mainly affects young people in their most productive years especially discordant couples areat continuous risk for acquiring the infection. But many individuals are unaware of their partner’s and their own Serostatus. So this Meta-analysis aimed to assess the prevalence of HIV Sero discordance among adult discordant couples inSub Saharan Africa, 2019.Methods: published and unpublished studies were searched systematically using electronic databases such as Googlescholars, Medline, hennery, Scopes and Pub Med. All observational studies, which were assessing and reporting theprevalence of HIV sero discordance were identified and included in analysis. Investigators using a data extraction tool diddata extraction. STATA statistical software version 14 was used for data analysis. The I2 test was used to evaluate studyheterogeneity, the random effect model was used to estimate the pooled association, and the Egger test was used to checkfor publishing bias.Results: Ten studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in the Meta - analysis. The findings of these 10 studiesrevealed that there was 23.77 (95 percent CI: 10.48, 37.09) pooled prevalence of sero discordance. The highest prevalenceof HIV sero discordance was found in Uganda and SSA OR: 49.2 (95% CI = (47, 50.9) and OR: 43 (95% CI = (41, 45)respectively.Conclusion: In this Meta-analysis the pooled prevalence of HIV sero discordant was high in Africa.