Understanding The Uptake Of Prevention Of Mother-To-Child Transmission Services Among Adolescent Girls In Sub-Saharan Africa: A Review Of Literature

Despite high pregnancy rates and HIV incidence among adolescents, their uptake of prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) services is not well characterized. This paper describes current PMTCT program coverage among adolescents <20 years. Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines, PubMed/MEDLINE (NCBI), SCOPUS (Elsevier), Grey literature and EMBASE and websites of international organizations and conferences were searched for eligible studies published from 2000 to 2017. Adolescents had lower rates of planned pregnancies, were less likely to know their HIV infection status before their first ANC visit, lower use of ARV, higher rates of loss to follow-up and higher rates of MTCT compared to adults. This study identified differential uptake of PMTCT services for adolescents compared to adults. Age-disaggregated data are urgently needed to understand the sub-optimal uptake of HIV services for adolescents in PMTCT and support the design of effective interventions to close these gaps.