A Bibliometric Analysis of Research on Zika Virus Indexed in Web of Science

Background: The spread of Zika virus is of great concern as it is recently becoming the third global infectious disease outburst after H1N1 flu and the Ebola virus infections. Centre for Disease Control (CDC) categorized Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh as countries vulnerable to Zika Risk. Realizing health implications of this emerging epidemic, it is a dire need to build an all-inclusive view of the status of research on Zika virus disease, and a lucid picture of the research output and scientific collaborations in the field. Methods: All the articles published globally on Zika virus during 2008-2017 and documented in Web of Science were analyzed using Microsoft Excel and Word Cloud tool. The data were extracted from all databases of the Web of Science, obtaining a total of 3384 articles for analysis. Results: 3384 records on Zika virus research were indexed in the Web of Science database during 2008-2017. The retrieved data indicate that over the past ten years, not much research has been done on this virus and the focus shifted to research on Zika in the last three years only and the number of researches increased from just 38 in 2015 to 1962 in 2017. Pakistan has a low share in global publications on Zika with a total number of 24 publications. "Honein Margaret" is considered the most active researcher in the field, by contributing to 80 articles. Most of the published research on Zika virus is from US (47.07%). Conclusion: When compared with other countries, the contribution of Pakistan is negligible with a global share of 0.71% on Zika virus. Serious focus on research is needed in this field realizing the severe medical, ethical, and economic implications of this emerging epidemic in Pakistan.