21.09.2020
01:08
The Ibero-American Observatory of Science, Technology and Society conducted a survey of the investigations that have been carried out and disseminated on the new coronavirus in the region
September 21, 2020 Share on FacebookShare Share on TwitterTweet Share on WhatsAppShare
The first contributions from Latin America appeared shortly after the crisis began on January 30 (REUTERS)
With Spain, Brazil and Mexico in the first three places, Ibero-America contributes scientific knowledge about the coronavirus, its evolution, and its impact on public health and has published it since January 30. According to a survey by the Observatory that depends on the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI), Ibero-American production reached its peak in the third week of May, with 36 documents per day. Subsequently, the daily average remained around 31 documents.
“We did a survey of all the scientific production that existed in the region. The explosion of research that has been carried out to respond to the different aspects of the pandemic continues to amaze, ” Rodolfo Barrere, coordinator of the Network of Science and Technology Indicators (RICYT), doctor in social sciences , told Infobae from the National University of Quilmes and Bachelor of Social Communication. His team used PubMed, which is a database of scientific journals maintained by the National Institutes of Health in the United States and freely accessible.
The first contributions from Latin America appeared shortly after the crisis began on January 30. The first published documents focused on epidemiological alerts. Until the end of March a significant volume of articles was not registered. There were only 73 in Latin America and 46 in Latin America. Starting in April, the production rate grew rapidly, driven mainly by publications by Spanish and Brazilian authors. In just ten days, Ibero-American production doubled and by the end of that month it had quintupled. With a somewhat lower volume, but at a similar rate, Latin America also exhibited a rapid growth trajectory since then
Until July 15, 2020, Latin America accumulated a total of 2,774 articles on COVID-19 and Latin America 1,394. In this way, they participated in 8.8% and 4.4% of the total production on the subject of the pandemic. Until July 15, Spain and Brazil accumulated 1,359 and 781 published documents respectively.
“At the beginning of the pandemic, there were more jobs from Ibero-American countries in cooperation with other nations. Many were about virus surveillance. Then they began to investigate more local issues more linked to finding solutions for the health system in the face of the health emergency, “said Barrere (REUTERS)
In a second group, Mexico, Portugal and Colombia show a similar scientific production on COVID-19 until mid-May. Argentina, Chile and Peru also start with similar values, although around May 15 Argentina took a bigger boost. Mexico and Portugal registered a total of close to 230 accumulated articles, while one notch below Colombia and Argentina accumulated around 150 documents (each one) in the period.
“At the beginning of the pandemic, there were more jobs from Ibero-American countries in cooperation with other nations. Many were about virus surveillance. Later they began to investigate more local issues more linked to finding solutions for the health system in the face of the health emergency, ” said Barrere.
The ranking of the countries that publish the most on topics related to COVID-19 in Latin America is also similar to that of publications on all topics. “This data corroborates that the research on the new coronavirus was supported by the research capacities in health issues already available in the countries,” said the researcher.
What topics have been investigated exactly? In Latin America, more research was published on the treatment of patients with COVID-19 and on the management of hospitals, clinics and health systems in general. This is known through an analysis of the themes that can be visualized using computer techniques of natural language analysis and networks were built from their semantic proximity.
By doing that kind of analysis, the researchers were also able to identify that there were differences with the most researched topics globally. The bulk of studies have focused more on the biomolecular issues of the coronavirus, and the possible blocking and inhibition mechanisms. Afterwards, the diagnostic techniques, articulated around computed tomography scans and lung lesions, the main risk factors associated with COVID-19, such as high blood pressure and heart and kidney comorbidities, have been studied. The psychological effects of the pandemic and social isolation have been studied , with anxiety, depression and stress as the main themes.
Publications in Latin America
(Source: Ibero-American Observatory of Science, Technology and Society)
Number of scientific articles published by country
(Source: Ibero-American Observatory of Science, Technology and Society)
I KEEP READING:
