[ad_1]
Laboratory researcher at the CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology in New Delhi
African scientists have continued to do dismal research on Covid-19, allowing only 3% of research on the virus, according to analyzes from major medical and global health journals.
Worse, even what is published – 1,130 documents between November 2019 and August 2020 – almost 65% of the articles came from just three countries: South Africa, Egypt and Nigeria.
The authors warned that Africans failing to publish their own research on Covid-19 in Africa, they have denied the continent the creation of relevant local knowledge to deal with the pandemic.
“African research groups are in an excellent position to scale up and support intra-continental collaboration to more accurately describe what is happening in Africa as the pandemic evolves,” they said.
Response efforts
“Based on our findings, we postulate that governments should increase the research resource allocations necessary to build confidence in academic institutions that will rapidly catalyze the contribution of Africa-led research into infectious diseases.”
The analyzes also highlighted the low number of scientific articles describing the epidemic and response efforts across the continent.
In addition, only four percent of scientific research published on Covid-19 relates to Africa. Out of a total of 2,196 articles on Covid-19, with 9,222 authors listed through them – reveal the two analyzes, published in the online journal BMJ Global Health on March 1 – only 94 articles (4.3%) had related content to Africa or to a specific African. the country; 292 (3.2 percent) of the authors were affiliated with an African organization, and while the average number of authors per article was 4.2, overall only a paltry average of 0.13 (3, 1 percent) of these authors were African.
One in five African articles on Covid-19 did not have African authors, and two-thirds or 66.1% of African article authors were not from Africa.
These recent events rekindle the often bitter debate around the historical under-representation of African scientists across the world of scientific research.
Previous studies suggest that Africans have been under-represented in the medical literature related to the burden of disease on the continent, with their research sector producing less than 1% of global health research each year.
“The same may have happened during the Covid-19 pandemic,” the report’s authors said.
With more than four million confirmed cases across the continent, 105,572 deaths and 3,535,824 recoveries as of March 8, the study’s authors said the relative lack of research on Africa or written by Africans is added to the growing body of “evidence of colonization in global health research and decision-making.”
A question of resources
In the first analysis, the study authors searched for African authors who published research and commentary on Covid-19 in Africa in the top five general medicine journals and the top five global health journals between January 1 and January 1. September 30, 2020.
In articles with African content, 619 authors were listed. But only a third (210; 34 percent) of these authors reported being affiliated with an African organization. There were an average of 6.6 authors for each article on Africa, of which 2.2 were African.
Authors from other parts of the world made up two-thirds (66%) of African article authors, but Africans made up only 3% of non-African article authors.
One in five (19) African articles on Covid-19 did not mention any African author. Some 39 (41.5 percent) of these articles had a first author from Africa, while 18-19 percent) had a last author from Africa.
African authors held these two prominent positions in 13 articles (14 percent), compared to 60 (three percent) cases of Africans occupying prominent positions for non-African content.
It’s no surprise that high-income countries have produced most of the research on Covid-19, given their resources, but they are nonetheless over-represented in research on Africa, the authors added.
UNMATCHED CONCLUSION
It is perhaps not surprising that high-income countries have produced most of the research on Covid-19, given their resources, but they are nonetheless over-represented in research on Africa. Health policy is not only informed by original research; Sound, context-sensitive guidelines, advice and commentary are also essential to improve the functioning of health systems. But, of the 94 articles related to Covid-19 in Africa, nearly three-quarters were opinion-based, compared to just over half for those unrelated to Africa. Almost 90% of opinion pieces on Africa cited authors from elsewhere.
Source link
