Recent Trends in Malaria Vaccine Research Globally: A Bibliometric Analysis From 2005 to 2022.

Malaria vaccine is one of the critical areas in tropical health research, considering the success recorded in other vaccine-preventable diseases. This study is aimed at reviewing recent trends in global malaria vaccine research from 2005 to 2022. A validated search strategy was undertaken to identify scientific literature on the malaria vaccine in the Scopus database. Bibliometric indicators identified include a pattern of publication growth and citations over the study period; top authors, countries, funding organizations, and journals; keywords, including different malarial parasite species, and the overall research themes. A total of 6457 documents were found from 2005 to 2022, published in 160 journals/sources in 189 countries/territories. Malaria Journal published the highest number of research outputs (478, 7.4%) within the study period, and the highest number of documents (468, 7.3%) were published in 2021. There were 214,323 total citations, with 33.2 average citations per document and 167 documents' h-index. The United States, United Kingdom, and Australia combined produced more than 60% of the publication output, with most collaboration with African countries such as Kenya. is the most occurring parasite species keyword (754, 11.7%), with a growing interest in (30, 0.5%). Merozoite surface protein, characterization, trials, infant/children, traveler, and research/review were the six themes that emerged from the studies. The last one and half decades have seen a significant increase in malaria vaccine research and citations, mainly targeting vaccine development, safety, and efficacy in Africa. This necessitates more international efforts to improve the vaccines' effectiveness considering different species.