Disease Burden of Nations and Research Output: Bibliometric Analysis of Ebola Virus Disease

Abstract

Literature output for a period of 30 years spanned between 1985 and 2014 has been obtained from PubMed. A sum total of 2172 records were retrieved and analysed bibliometrically. The publications output registers a growth since 2000 and maintains a steadiness up to 2014. For the first decade ending with 1994, many years witnessed mostly less than 10 publications while 100 and above items could be traced only from and after 2003. There is an upheaval in the quantum of research output noticed in 2014, though the calendar has a few more days to complete the year. Regarding region-wise research output in the context of author affiliation, North America tops the list with 1076 publications forming almost half the population of publications followed by authors belonging to a cluster of nations coming under the European regions are found to be closely tailing behind North America (44.8%). Africa, with a heavy disease burden has only 19 publications forming less than 1 per cent of the total publications output. India draws a blank and did not participate in Ebola Virus Disease.