Abstract
The current Ebola outbreak poses a threat to individual and global public health. Although the disease has been of interest to the scientific community since 1976, an effective vaccination approach is still lacking. This fact questions past global public health strategies, which have not foreseen the possible impact of this infectious disease. To quantify the global research activity in this field, a scientometric investigation was conducted. We analyzed the research output of countries, individual institutions and their collaborative networks. The resulting research architecture indicated that American and European countries played a leading role regarding output activity, citations and multi- and bilateral cooperations. When related to population numbers, African countries, which usually do not dominate the global research in other medical fields, were among the most prolific nations. We conclude that the field of Ebola research is constantly progressing, and the research landscape is influenced by economical and infrastructural factors as well as historical relations between countries and outbreak events.
Highlights
No other infectious disease event has captured the attention of the international health community in recent years like the Ebola outbreak
Data Availability Statement: The original data sheets are fully available via the link: http://www.med. uni-frankfurt.de/institut/arbeitsmedizin/PublicRepository/Scientom_Ebola/index.html
Our research provides the first overview of the worldwide Ebola research output
Summary
No other infectious disease event has captured the attention of the international health community in recent years like the Ebola outbreak. The current epidemic started in December 2013 leading to over 26.000 infected patients and more than 10.000 deaths [1] The outbreak reached global dimension as hospitals in the United States of America (US) and Europe are treating patients returning from health missions in Ebola affected countries [2]. The pathogenesis of the Ebola virus is intensively investigated worldwide, the undisputed identification of the natural reservoir has not been successful yet. Bats were implicated as a possible host for the Ebola as well as the related Marburg virus [3]
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