A bibliometric analysis of COVID-19 research in Africa

  1. Fatuma Hassan Guleid
  2. Robinson Oyando
  3. Evelyn Kabia
  4. Audrey Mumbi
  5. Samuel Akech
  6. Edwine Barasa

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Abstract

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.

Conclusions

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.

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  1. Version published to 10.1136/bmjgh-2021-005690
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.03.15.21253589: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Data Source: Published papers and grey literature were searched via a topic search (title/abstract) on the following databases: PubMed, African Journals Online, MedRxiv, BioRxiv, Collabovid, the WHO global research database and Google for grey literature.
    PubMed
    suggested: (PubMed, RRID:SCR_004846)
    BioRxiv
    suggested: (bioRxiv, RRID:SCR_003933)
    Analysis: Descriptive analyses were conducted to evaluate the characteristics and types of articles retrieved using Microsoft excel.
    Microsoft excel
    suggested: (Microsoft Excel, RRID:SCR_016137)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    However, a limitation of this analysis is the use of institutional affiliation as an indicator of author nationality. This means that an African author based in a non-African institution would be classified as non-African and a non-African working in an African institution would be classified as African. This misclassification underestimates the contribution of Africa’s large scientific diaspora. Additionally, there was disparity in the geographical representation of African first and last authors. The top four author affiliations were all South African institutions, with the University of Cape Town as the leading institution with the highest number of first and last authors. This is an indicator of the small number of research institutions on the continent and the uneven distribution of these institutions. Over 13% of articles identified were published in the preprint servers. However, for articles that were peer-reviewed and published in journals, we found that 3 African journals featured in the top 15 journals publishing COVID-19 articles on Africa; Pan African Medical journal, South African Medical Journal and African journal of Primary Health Care & Family medicine. This is promising as availability of local journals where African researchers can publish their work can increase publication output. Most of the research work that is undertaken in Africa is meant for the local audience and addresses local concerns and may not be fairly represented by western publishers. So,...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.03.15.21253589v1 on medRxiv