Trends in malaria research in 11 Asian Pacific countries: an analysis of peer-reviewed publications over two decades

Malaria Journal

Research

Maxine Whittaker¹  Finn Andersen²  Lorenz von Seidlein²  Ric N Price³  Nick M Douglas³  Michelle S Hsiang⁴  Gao Qi⁵  George Taleo⁶  Gawrie Galappaththy⁷  Dorina Bustos⁸  Rita Kusriastuti⁹  Kamini Mendis^1,10 

[1] Australian Centre for International and Tropical Health, School of Population Health, The University of Queensland, Herston, Australia;Global Health Division, Menzies School of Health Research, PO Box 41096, NT 0811, Casuarina, Australia;Global Health Division, Menzies School of Health Research, PO Box 41096, NT 0811, Casuarina, Australia;Centre for Tropical Medicine, Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Oxford, UK;Global Health Group, University of California, San Francisco, USA;Jiangsu Institute of Parasitic Diseases, 214064, Wuxi, Jiangsu, P.R.China;Malaria & Vector Borne Diseases Control Programme, Ministry of Health, Vanuatu;National Malaria Control Programme, Ministry of Health, Colombo, Sri Lanka;Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, Department of Health, FICC, Alabang, Muntinlupa City, Philippines;Vector Borne Disease Control Programme, Ministry of Health, Jakarta, Republic of Indonesia;World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland;

关键词: Malaria;    Gross Domestic Product;    Human Development Index;    Research Output;    Vivax Malaria;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1475-2875-10-131

 received in 2011-03-01, accepted in 2011-05-18,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundQuantitative data are lacking on published malaria research. The purpose of the study is to characterize trends in malaria-related literature from 1990 to 2009 in 11 Asian-Pacific countries that are committed to malaria elimination as a national goal.MethodsA systematic search was conducted for articles published from January 1990 to December 2009 in PubMed/MEDLINE using terms for malaria and 11 target countries (Bhutan, China, North Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Solomon Islands, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vanuatu). The references were collated and categorized according to subject, Plasmodium species, and whether they contained original or derivative data.Results2,700 articles published between 1990 and 2009 related to malaria in the target countries. The annual output of malaria-related papers increased linearly whereas the overall biomedical output from these countries grew exponentially. The percentage of malaria-related publications was nearly 3% (111/3741) of all biomedical publications in 1992 and decreased to less than 1% (118/12171; p < 0.001) in 2009. Thailand had the highest absolute output of malaria-related papers (n = 1211), followed by China (n = 609) and Indonesia (n = 346). Solomon Islands and Vanuatu had lower absolute numbers of publications, but both countries had the highest number of publications per capita (1.3 and 2.5 papers/1,000 population). The largest percentage of papers concerned the epidemiology and control of malaria (53%) followed by studies of drugs and drug resistance (47%). There was an increase in the proportion of articles relating to epidemiology, entomology, biology, molecular biology, pathophysiology and diagnostics from the first to the second decade, whereas the percentage of papers on drugs, clinical aspects of malaria, immunology, and social sciences decreased.ConclusionsThe proportion of malaria-related publications out of the overall biomedical output from the 11 target Asian-Pacific countries is decreasing. The discovery and evaluation of new, safe and effective drugs and vaccines is paramount. In addition the elimination of malaria will require operational research to implement and scale up interventions.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Andersen et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.