Scientific HIV research in Africa and the Middle East: a socio-economic demographic analysis

Abstract

Background: In Africa, HIV/AIDS research is concentrated in certain countries, particularly South Africa. This distribution may not accurately reflect the disease prevalence or the true research efforts of countries.
Objectives: To identify HIV/AIDS research productivity of countries in Africa and the Middle East, in absolute terms and adjusted for people living with HIV, population size and economic development.
Methods: We identified all the articles and reviews on HIV and AIDS in the Web of Science Core Collection in which African or Middle Eastern countries had participated. After determining the number of documents produced by each country, we adjusted the findings for the number of people living with HIV, number of inhabitants, gross domestic product and gross national income per capita.
Results: African and Middle Eastern countries participated in 21.52% (n = 14 808) of all 68 808 documents analysed. East and Southern Africa produced 17.8% of all documents (n = 12 249), West and Central Africa accounted for only 3.34% (n = 2300), and the Middle East and North Africa, 1.18% (n = 814). South Africa produced 40.94% (n = 6 063) of all publications. Only two other African countries — Uganda (12.97%; n = 1 921) and Kenya (10.71%; n = 1 586) — produced more than 10% of these publications. The indices used for adjusting research productivity revealed the effort and contribution of other countries.
Conclusion: Our study confirmed the leading role of South Africa in driving HIV/AIDS research, but also highlighted the contribution of countries such as Uganda, Malawi, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

Keywords: acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, bibliometrics, epidemiology, IDS, South Africa