Review of authorship for COVID-19 research conducted during the 2020 first-wave epidemic in Africa reveals emergence of promising African biomedical research and persisting asymmetry of international collaborations.
Trop Med Int Health
; 27(2): 137-148, 2022 02.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1608272
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES:
The contribution of African authors to the biomedical literature is small. We evaluated the African and non-African scientific production published in the international literature on the COVID-19 in Africa during the first year of the epidemic (2020).METHODS:
Papers on COVID-19 in Africa were extracted from the Medline (PubMed) database for bibliometric analysis including the proportions of three leading and last authors by study type, study country, authors' and laboratories/institutions' countries of affiliation and journal ranking.RESULTS:
A total of 160 articles fulfilling the inclusion criteria were analysed. The majority (91.3%) was produced by half (53.7%) of African countries, with important regional disparities, and generally without sources of funding mentioned. The majority (>85.0) of authors in lead positions (first, second, third and last authors) were Africans. Only a small number (8.7%) of studies on COVID-19 in Africa were carried out by laboratories not on the African continent (mainly Europe, USA and China) and generally received funding. The last and first authors were more frequently of non-African origin in journals with an Impact Factor ranking ≥1, and more frequently of African origin in journals with a lower ranking (< 1). The first and last non-African authors tended to report their studies in high ranking ≥1 journals.CONCLUSIONS:
Our study demonstrates that the emergence of promising African research capable of publishing in indexed but low-impact factor medical journals and reveals the persistence of a North-South asymmetry in international cooperation in biomedical research with Africa.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Research
/
Authorship
/
COVID-19
/
International Cooperation
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Reviews
Limits:
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
Africa
Language:
English
Journal:
Trop Med Int Health
Journal subject:
Tropical Medicine
/
Public Health
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Tmi.13717
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