Table 1.

Summary characteristics of included studies

STI	Gonorrhea	Chlamydia	Trichomoniasis	Mycoplasma genitalium	Total
Included in pooled prevalence analysis	44	45	51	13	66
Included in comparative analysis	24	25	31	9	42

Region

Eastern Africa	24	25	23	2	31
Southern Africa	14	14	17	8	22
West/Central Africa	5	5	9	3	12
Multiple regions	1	1	2	0	2

Clinical setting ^a

General care	16	19	22	6	27
STI clinic	4	5	5	3	6
Antenatal care	12	9	14	1	17
Community-based	5	6	4	1	6
Other^b	7	7	6	2	9

Pregnancy

Pregnant	14	11	15	2	19
Nonpregnant	8	9	10	4	13

Symptoms

Symptomatic	4	5	7	6	11
Asymptomatic	2	2	2	2	3

Study start year ^c

Before 2010	24	25	29	5	37
2010 or Later	15	15	16	6	22

Risk of bias category

Low	17	18	19	6	26
Medium	27	27	32	7	41
High	0	0	0	0	0

Test type ^a

NAAT/PCR	33	36	22	13	46
Culture	10		7		16
EIA		9			9
Microscopy			19		19
Other^d	2		3		5

Totals may be higher than total number of studies because different enrollment sites within one study were conducted in different clinical settings and/or used a different testing modality for the same STI.

“Other” includes studies recruiting in multiple settings, family planning clinics, infertility clinics, labor& delivery ward, or unspecified settings.

Studies that did not report dates of data collection are not included.

Includes ligase chain reaction for gonorrhea; OSOM antigen test, rapid immunochromatographic assay, and cytology for trichomoniasis; and multiple test types.

STI, sexually transmitted infection; NAAT/PCR, nucleic acid amplification testing/polymerase chain reaction; EIA, enzyme immunoassay.