‘India contributed just 6.7pc to global Covid research’

NEW DELHI: India has recorded the second highest number of coronavirus cases in the world, but despite the high rate of infections, it accounts for only 6.7 per cent of global scientific research on Covid-19, a new study has found, foreign media reported.

A total of 87,515 publications were pushed out until 5 October 2020, of which the US contributed the most at 32.5 per cent articles (17,129 articles), said the study published in the Scientometrics Journal earlier this month.

The study was conducted by researchers at John Glenn College of Public Affairs at Ohio State University in the US, in collaboration with researchers from Zhejiang University in China.

“The most affected nations tend to produce the greatest number of coronavirus articles, with output closely coupled to the rate of infection,” the study said, even as it noted that countries like India recorded a higher rate of publications in the later stage of the pandemic.

According to the study, there was a great “boom” in the number of Covid publications. It divided the publications in three periods: Period 1 — 1 January to 8 April 2020 (4,875 articles); Period 2 — 9 April to 12 July (39,138); and Period 3 — 13 July to 5 October (43,502).

The data was focused on nine of the 10 most affected countries during the research period — the US, India, France, Brazil, UK, Spain, Russia, Belgium and Poland — and China, since it was the “first economy that suffered from the pandemic”. According to the study, there was a great “boom” in the number of Covid publications.