Policy Engagement & Knowledge Translation Unit, KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme, Nairobi, Kenya.
Health Economics Research Unit, KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme, Nairobi, Kenya.
BMJ Glob Health. 2021 May;6(5). doi: 10.1136/bmjgh-2021-005690.
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.
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.
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.
This study highlights Africa's COVID-19 research and the continent's existing capacity to carry out research that addresses local problems. However, more studies focused on vaccines and therapeutics are needed to inform local development. In addition, the uneven distribution of research productivity among African countries emphasises the need for increased investment where needed.
COVID-19 大流行促使全球开展了前所未有的研究工作，以构建可提供缓解策略信息的知识库。我们进行了文献计量分析，以研究地点、研究设计、研究主题和作者隶属关系为依据，描述非洲的 COVID-19 研究成果。
我们从包括 PubMed、African Journals Online、medRxiv、Collabovid、世卫组织全球研究数据库和 Google 在内的各种数据库中搜索了 2019 年 12 月 1 日至 2021 年 1 月 3 日期间发表的文章。所有文章类型和研究设计均包括在内。
共检索到 1296 篇文章。46.6%为主要研究文章，48.6%为社论类文章，4.6%为二次研究文章。20.3%的文章将整个非洲大陆作为研究地点，而南非（15.4%）是最常见的以国家为重点的研究地点。最常见的研究主题包括“国家准备和应对”（24.9%）和“大流行对直接和间接的健康影响”（21.6%）。然而，只有 1.0%的文章专注于治疗方法和疫苗。90.3%的文章至少有一位非洲研究人员作为作者，78.5%的文章有一位非洲研究人员作为第一作者，而 63.5%的文章有一位非洲研究人员作为最后作者。开普敦大学以拥有最多的第一和最后作者而领先。13%的文章发表在 medRxiv 上，在声明有资金的研究中，惠康信托基金会是最大的资助机构。
本研究强调了非洲的 COVID-19 研究以及非洲开展解决当地问题研究的现有能力。然而，需要更多的疫苗和治疗方法研究，以提供当地的发展信息。此外，非洲国家间研究生产力的分布不均强调了需要在需要的地方增加投资。
