Bibliometric analysis of the trends of Zika related research from 2015 to 2017

Background: Zika virus (ZIKV) is a mosquito-borne disease discovered in 1947, which did not cause public concern for the next 68 years. However, when ZIKV emerged in Brazil 2015 the attention increased rapidly. The announcement by Brazilian authorities, that ZIKV infection was associated with severe congenital disease e.g. microcephaly, surged public interest. Because of the accumulation of evidence that showed the magnitude of the ZIKV outbreak in the Americas, the World Health Organization declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern February 1, 2016. Results: During 2015-2017, we witnessed one of the most active and cooperated research responses against an emerging disease. To investigate the impact of ZIKV research during those years we decided to perform a bibliometric analysis of ZIKV research. The search for research articles on ZIKV was performed by bibliometric analysis from the scientific databases PubMed and Scopus. We found that the number of ZIKV related publications increased 38-41 times in 2016-2017 compared to 2015. During the three years there was a temporal shift in ZIKV research trends, from reports of ZIKV case studies and diagnostic methods, to development of ZIKV prevention and treatment. In addition, the number of countries involved in ZIKV research increased from 25 in 2015 to 111 in 2016 and 139 in the following year, showing that ZIKV research became global during three years. Conclusions: The results from our study highlighted the importance of gathering public interest to global health issues, and how it can act as a powerful catalyzer to trigger the research field. However, despite the progress in ZIKV research, many questions remain to be addressed to accelerate the development of effective ZIKV countermeasures. Nevertheless, as long as we remember the importance of support and collaboration that we have experienced during the multidisciplinary effort against the current ZIKV outbreak, we will have an idea on how to handle the next inevitable and yet unknown infectious disease threat.