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 2022;
27:137-148. [PMID:
34984771 DOI:
10.1111/tmi.13717]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
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.
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