A bibliometric analysis of COVID-19 research in Africa - World

A bibliometric analysis of COVID-19 research in Africa
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ABSTRACT
Background The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an unprecedented global research effort to build a body of knowledge that can inform mitigation strategies. We carried out a bibliometric analysis to describe the COVID-19 research output in Africa in terms of setting, study design, research themes and author affiliation.
Methods We searched for articles published between 1 December 2019 and 3 January 2021 from various databases including PubMed, African Journals Online, medRxiv, Collabovid, the WHO global research database and Google. All article types and study design were included.
Results A total of 1296 articles were retrieved. 46.6% were primary research articles, 48.6% were editorial-type articles while 4.6% were secondary research articles. 20.3% articles used the entire continent of Africa as their study setting while South Africa (15.4%) was the most common country-focused setting. The most common research topics include ‘country preparedness and response’ (24.9%) and ‘the direct and indirect health impacts of the pandemic’ (21.6%). However, only 1.0% of articles focus on therapeutics and vaccines. 90.3% of the articles had at least one African researcher as author, 78.5% had an African researcher as first author, while 63.5% had an African researcher as last author. The University of Cape Town leads with the greatest number of first and last authors. 13% of the articles were published in medRxiv and of the studies that declared funding, the Wellcome Trust was the top funding body.

Related Keywords

South Africa , University Of Cape Town , Western Cape , Robinson Oyando , Evelyn Kabia , Samuel Akech , Audrey Mumbi , Edwine Barasa , Fatuma Hassan Guleid , Google , Wellcome , African Journals Online , Cape Town , Wellcome Trust , பல்கலைக்கழகம் ஆஃப் கேப் நகரம் , மேற்கு கேப் , கூகிள் , வெல்கம் , கேப் நகரம் , வெல்கம் நம்பிக்கை ,