Contributions of Latin American researchers in the understanding of the novel coronavirus outbreak: a literature review

Abstract

This article aimed to give the visibility of Latin American researchers’ contributions to the comprehension of COVID-19; our method was a literature review. Currently, the world is facing a health and socioeconomic crisis caused by the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, and its disease COVID-19. Therefore, in less than 4 months, researchers have published a significant number of articles related to this novel virus. For instance, a search focused on the Scopus database on 10 April 2020, showed 1,224 documents published by authors with 1,797 affiliations from 80 countries. A total of 25.4%, 24.0% and 12.6% of these national affiliations were from China, Europe and the USA, respectively, making these regions leaders in COVID-19 research. In the case of Latin America, on 10 April 2020, we searched different databases, such as Scopus, PubMed and Web of Science, finding that the contribution of this region was 2.7 ± 0.6% of the total publications found. In other words, we found 153 publications related to COVID-19 with at least one Latin American researcher. We summarized and processed the information from these 153 publications, finding active participation in topics like medical, social and environmental considerations, bioinformatics and epidemiology.

Systematic review of bibliometric studies on SARS-CoV-2

“…Among the three studies published in June 2020, the first aimed to verify Latin American researchers' contribution to the comprehension of SARS-CoV-2, finding 153 publications with at least one Latin American researcher 21 . In the second study, Haghani and Bliemer 18 evaluated the scientometrics aspects of the literature on SARS-CoV-2, compared with two other main diseases caused by coronaviruses, SARS and MERS, retrieving 11,859 documents.…”

“…This explains the significant variation in the total amount of articles found in the bibliometric studies on SARS-CoV-2 included in this study. Kousha and Thelwall 20 located the highest number of documents on SARS-CoV-2 (21,395), and it evaluated the potential of coverage of nine different academic databases. On the other hand, Fiesco-Sepúlveda and Serrano-Bermúdez 21 retrieved the fewest number of scientific articles (153).…”

“…Kousha and Thelwall 20 located the highest number of documents on SARS-CoV-2 (21,395), and it evaluated the potential of coverage of nine different academic databases. On the other hand, Fiesco-Sepúlveda and Serrano-Bermúdez 21 retrieved the fewest number of scientific articles (153). However, the main objective of these authors was restricted to evaluate only Latin American contributions to SARS-CoV-2 studies.…”

Tackling COVID-19 Pandemic through Research in Latin America and the Caribbean: A Bibliometric Analysis

“…Our results advance the current understanding of the production of COVID-19 related publications among LAC countries in several ways. First, we expanded upon previous bibliometric studies conducted in the region, which presented data until April and only included countries of Latin America [16,17]. The present study provides data until July and encompasses Caribbean countries in the search as well.…”

“…In contrast, our analysis provides a detailed overview of the LAC COVID-19 publications by categorizing by study design and by eight different research focuses. Hence, we included areas not covered in this previous publication, such as provision of health services and public policy aspects [17].…”