Legal age of consent for hiv testing among adolescents in sub saharan africa, a systematic review

Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) harbours more than 80% of adolescents living with HIV. High age of consent for HIV testing has been identified as one of the key barriers to adolescents’ access to HIV testing. We conducted a systematic literature review to demonstrate the status of age of consent policies in SSA and evidence of relationship between age of consent policies and adolescent’s uptake of HIV testing. We obtained peer reviewed literature from Medline, Embase, Scopus and Web of Science databases and policy review from national HIV testing guidelines and UNAIDS data reports. Age of consent for HIV testing in the region ranged between 12 and 18 years. Among 33 included countries, 14 (42.4%) had age of consent between 12 – 14 years, 9 (27.3%) had age of consent between 15 – 17 years and 10 countries (30.3%) still have the highest age of consent at 18 years as of 2019. Lowering age of consent has been associated with increased access to HIV testing among adolescents. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Funding Statement The author FTE is supported by Ifakara Health Institute-Tanzania ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Not Applicable The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: N/A I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Not Applicable I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Not Applicable I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable. Not Applicable There is no primary data collected for completion of this work