Scientific output on coronavirus and WHO’s Solidarity Project: a science-based choice?

In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the Solidarity Program probably the largest global initiative to encourage and support research in four promising drugs and therapies (Remdesivir, Hydroxychloroquine, β interferon and the combination Lopinavir / Ritonavir) to reduce the mortality of COVID-19. Considering the potential impact of this project to restrain the current pandemic, the present study aims to investigate whether it was designed upon a scientific basis. For this proposal, we collected all documents on coronavirus indexed in Scopus database by using a search strategy based in MESH terms. Among the studied groups of documents, we looked in more detail the Coronavirus group in order to find documents related to WHO’ s drugs or to other drugs and therapies extracted from another source. The main findings indicate that the number of documents related to WHO’s drugs are higher than in the other groups and this subset of documents involves a larger number of institutions and countries. Hence, the results shown in this study illustrate that decisions by an international body, as WHO, may be science-based and not be merely bureaucratic decisions. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Funding Statement The authors would like to thank the help of the doctoral student Stephanie Treiber during the earlier stage of the work. This work has financial support from Capes and CNPq through the Doctoral’s scholarships granted to Andreia Galina and to Deise Sarzi, and the CNPq funding awarded to the research project n. 434.146/2018-8. ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: N/A All necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable. Yes Data can not be shared because of they were retrieved from secondary sources, which do not allow the publicity.