Abstract:
Introduction: Uptake of HIV testing is vital for the early diagnosis for HIV infection and initiation of treatment,
which are used to eliminate the disease's progression and reduce HIV-related mortality. Even if determining
HIV testing is imperative to prevent HIV/ADIS among multiple sexual partners who are at higher risk of
sexually transmitted infections, most of the countries in Sub Saharan Africa didn’t fulfil the global targets of
UNAIDS. Moreover there is a paucity of literature on spatial variation and factors associated with HIV testing
among high-risk groups in SSA.
Objective: To assess the pooled prevalence, spatial variation and determinants of HIV testing uptake among
multiple sexual partners in Sub Saharan Africa: based on recent DHS.
Methods and materials: The Demographic and Health Surveys data conducted between 2011 and 2021 in 30 Sub Saharan Africa countries was used to analyze total weighted sample of 56,210 multiple sexual partners.
Exploratory spatial data analysis, with countries as the unit of analysis was conducted using ArcGIS V10.7.1
and Sat Scan V 10.1 soft wares. A multilevel binary logistic regression model was used to identify the factors
associated with the HIV testing uptake. The Adjusted odds Ratio with a 95% confidence interval was reported
to declare the strength of association and their statistical significance.
Result: In this study, the spatial patterns of HIV testing uptake were found to be non-random. Primary clusters
were identified around western and central sub- regions. Multiple sexual partners who were ever married, those
attended primary level and above education , those from rich wealth status, aged above 24 years, having good
HIV related knowledge, and exposed to media were positive association with HIV testing uptake. However,
being male, having working status and living in rural area were negatively associated with HIV testing uptake.
At the community-level, multiple sexual partners from communities in Eastern and southern sub regions,
countries with upper middle income and countries with the survey year after 2014 were more likely to utilize
HIV testing services compared with their counter parts.
Conclusion and recommendations: The current study indicated that the pooled prevalence of the HIV testing
uptake among multiple sexual partners was found to be lower than the universal target and showed differences
in HIV testing uptake across Sub-Saharan Africa region. Both individual and community-level factors affected
HIV testing uptake among multiple sexual partners. Stakeholders should implement interventions to help increase the
uptake of HIV testing among those risky groups in this region.
