Abstract
BackgroundLassa fever has been a public health concern in the West African sub-region where it is endemic and a latent threat to the world at large. We investigated the trend in Lassa fever research using bibliometric approach.MethodsWe used the SCOPUS database employing “Lassa fever” as search descriptor. The most common bibliometric indicators were applied for the selected publications.ResultsThe number of scientific research articles retrieved for Lassa fever research from 1970 to 2017 was 1101. The growth of publications was more linear (r = 0.67) than exponential (r = 0.53). The duplication time of the scientific articles was 9.19 years. Small number of authors were responsible for bulk of the article production (transience index of 78.89%). The collaboration index was 4.59 per paper. The Bradford core consisted of 19 journals in which Journal of Virology was at the top (4.6%). Majority of the output were from USA government agencies. United States was the most productive country. Joseph B. McCormick was the most productive author, while New England Journal of Medicine published the two most cited articles.ConclusionThe growth of scientific Literature on Lassa fever was of linear pattern with high transient authors indicating low productivity and non-specialized authors from other related areas publishing sporadically. This study provides a helpful reference for medical virologists, epidemiologist, policy decision makers, academics and Lassa fever researchers.
Highlights
Lassa fever has been a public health concern in the West African sub-region where it is endemic and a latent threat to the world at large
Lassa virus (LASV), the causative agent of Lassa fever, is a negative strand RNA virus belonging to the old world complex family Arenaviridae characterized by the appearance of “sandy” ribosomes encapsulated in the virion as seen in electron microscope [3,4,5]
Price law is not fulfilled (r = 0.6707 in linear adjustment versus r = 0.5270 in exponential adjustment). This shows that growth of scientific literature in the area of Lassa fever research is in the linear growth stage
Summary
Lassa fever has been a public health concern in the West African sub-region where it is endemic and a latent threat to the world at large. We investigated the trend in Lassa fever research using bibliometric approach. Lassa virus (LASV), the causative agent of Lassa fever, is a negative strand RNA virus belonging to the old world complex family Arenaviridae characterized by the appearance of “sandy” ribosomes encapsulated in the virion as seen in electron microscope [3,4,5]. The reservoir/natural host of the virus is the multimammate rat Mastomys natalensis which live close to human settlement [4]. Mastomys natalensis shed the virus in urine [6] and contamination of human food is a more likely mode of transmission.
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