Regional System for Vaccines (SIREVA), laboratory surveillance and vaccine development for Streptococcus pneumoniae: Bibliometric analysis, 1993-2019

Abstract

Objective. To measure through bibliometric analysis the productivity, visibility and impact of the Regional System for Vaccines (SIREVA, a project by the Pan American Health Organization), including its two components laboratory surveillance and vaccine development. Methods. Publications about laboratory surveillance and vaccine development were recovered from Scopus, including their references and citations, and their bibliometric indicators were analyzed. VOSviewer 1.6.13® was used to visualize the co-authorship networks, by country and authors, and to perform a cooccurrence analysis of terms included in the titles and abstracts of the publications. Results. The criteria for laboratory surveillance and vaccine development were met by 173 and 128 publications, respectively. Ten countries in the Region of the Americas were responsible for 90.8% of the publications on laboratory surveillance and 8 for all publications on vaccine development. The 10 most cited publications on laboratory surveillance and on vaccine development were included in 855 and 503 articles, respectively, the main authors being from Australia, Belgium, Brazil, China, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Network building and visualization by author and country co-authors, and co-occurrence of terms showed networking and intraregional collaboration, and allowed for the follow-up of study areas and evolution over time. Conclusions. The bibliometric analysis allowed to objectively record the productivity and visibility of the Regional System for Vaccines for Streptococcus pneumoniae in the Region.