Quantum of Ebola Virus Disease Occurrence and Quantum of Research Publications: A Scientrometric Analysis

Ebola virus in humans causes hemorrhagic fever with a case fatality rate of 50% to 90%. So far, there is no specific treatment or vaccine for the Ebola virus. Patients experience uncontrollable bleeding from all body orifices, with intravenous fluid replacement therapy offering little consolation. World Health Organization (WHO) declared this epidemic as an international public health emergency. Moreover, there is now considerable concern that this Ebola outbreak will threaten world security. The proliferation rate of the disease since 2013 is at an alarming rate and is simultaneously found reflected in an abnormal research literature output. A sum total of 2172 publications were captured from the PubMed covering a longer period spanned between 1985 and 2014. While tracing the development trend in both the frequency distribution of the disease and countries affected, the data of research publications in Ebola were subjected to a Scientrometric study to find out if there exists a correlation between the countries affected by a specific disease and countries contributing to Ebola research. As usual in the case of any epidemic, USA leads in Biomedical research nullifying the hypothesis of the present study while the mostly affected African countries were poor in Ebola research contributions.