Search results and scope of evidence
We identified 21,849 publications from four bibliographic databases
(PubMed 1,125, Embase 14,243, CNKI 2,387, and Wanfang 4,094). After
excluding duplicate references, 20,830 publications remained. Based on
the abstract and title screening, 19,643 publications were further
excluded. As 16 publications were not retrieved for full text, 1,171
publications entered full-text screening. Of these, an additional 714
publications were excluded, leaving the rest 457 publications that met
eligibility criteria. The majority of the studies were conducted in
Central Southern China (30.6%), Southeastern (28.7%), and Southwestern
China (17.5%).
In total, 429 included publications reported the overall seroprevalence
rates (939 stratified measures), 5 reported seroincidence rates, four
reported the overall proportions of HSV-2 isolation in GUD (8 stratified
proportions), and 24 reported the overall proportions of HSV-2 isolation
in genital herpes (59 stratified proportions). The PRISMA flowchart of
article selection is summarized in Figure 1 . For study
settings, 80.0% of the studies involved more than 200 participants, and
91.2% used non-probability-based methods. About two-thirds of studies
had more than 80% response rates.