Bibliometric analysis of global Lassa fever research (1970–2017): a 47 – year study

BACKGROUND: Lassa fever has been a public health concern in the West African sub-region where it is endemic and a latent threat to the world at large. We investigated the trend in Lassa fever research using bibliometric approach. METHODS: We used the SCOPUS database employing “Lassa fever” as search descriptor. The most common bibliometric indicators were applied for the selected publications. RESULTS: The number of scientific research articles retrieved for Lassa fever research from 1970 to 2017 was 1101. The growth of publications was more linear (r = 0.67) than exponential (r = 0.53). The duplication time of the scientific articles was 9.19 years. Small number of authors were responsible for bulk of the article production (transience index of 78.89%). The collaboration index was 4.59 per paper. The Bradford core consisted of 19 journals in which Journal of Virology was at the top (4.6%). Majority of the output were from USA government agencies. United States was the most productive country. Joseph B. McCormick was the most productive author, while New England Journal of Medicine published the two most cited articles. CONCLUSION: The growth of scientific Literature on Lassa fever was of linear pattern with high transient authors indicating low productivity and non-specialized authors from other related areas publishing sporadically. This study provides a helpful reference for medical virologists, epidemiologist, policy decision makers, academics and Lassa fever researchers.