key: cord-0915856-zl460hl6
authors: Hernández, R. M.; Saavedra-López, M. A.; Calle-Ramirez, X. M.
title: Latin American participation in the scientific production of vaccines against COVID -19
date: 2022-05-18
journal: nan
DOI: 10.1016/j.vacune.2022.05.002
sha: d63097e5109a4501e94a1271cc6a2e6761251c49
doc_id: 915856
cord_uid: zl460hl6

nan

We read the paper "Novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak: A comprehensive review of the current literature", by Ullah et al. 1 with interest. They review current knowledge and the data corresponding to the pandemic regarding the epidemiology, prevention, treatment, clinical patterns and diagnoses of COVID-19. During recent years vaccines have significantly increased life expectancy, and community reactions to this have been positive. As vaccines became available, the devastating effects of many infectious diseases have vanished. 2 The healthcare crisis caused by COVID-19 and this impact this is now having on the world economy is placing all countries under pressure, so that several university and pharmaceutical industry research teams are accelerating their efforts to find a vaccine that will make it possible to contain the pandemic. 3 Due to the urgent need to find a vaccine and the untiring work of professionals, more than 200 candidate vaccines for COVID-19 are now under study. 4 Latin America is one of the regions with the highest mortality rate due to COVID-19, and this situation is due to conditions that create vulnerability, such as poverty, inequality and insufficient social protection, health systems and security networks. 5 There are also marked differences in the American continent between countries such as Canada and the United States, which are leaders in vaccine research, production and exportation, and other countries with emerging economies such as Brazil, Mexico or Argentina, which have local production capacities and manufacture the vaccines they need so much to satisfy their needs. On the other hand, the majority of countries in the region have not commenced the process of bioindustrialization and have little productive capacity and few strategies to become independent in biotechnology. 6 A retrospective study was performed which examined papers on COVID-19 vaccines published and indexed in the Scopus database, whose authorship mentioned membership of Latin American institutions. It was decided to use this database due to the large number of biomedical journals which it includes, and its rigorous process of selecting journals, which made it possible to collect the most relevant studies on the variable. The search included all of the papers published and indexed from January 2020 to Ju 2021, considering the fields Article Title, Abstracts and Keywords, using the following words as search terms: "Vaccine" OR "Vaccination" and their connection with the terms "2019-nCoV OR SARS-CoV-2 OR2019 novel coronavirus" OR COVID-19 OR "Coronavirus disease 2019". A total of 141 published papers were found that were indexed in Scopus, with Latin American authorship and membership of Latin American institutions. The analysis included 5 types of publishable documents, especially: Papers (50.4%); Reviews (29.1%); Letter to the Editor (8.5%); Editorials (8.5%) and Notes (3.5%).

Latin American scientific production increased during the past year by 26.2%. Brazil is the country that contributed the most to scientific production about vaccines and Covid-19, representing 33.3% of Latin American production, followed by México, Colombia, Argentina and Chile, all of which had more than 10 publications. 3 Latin American countries (the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Jamaica) had less than 1 publication (see Table 1 ).

All of the above reflects the inequality between Latin American countries in terms of their scientific production on vaccines against COVID-19. It is fundamental for all countries to be able to develop more research that contributes to mitigating the adverse effects of the pandemic. Even so, vaccination requires studies that aim to characterize and analyse the range of events associated with each type of COVID vaccine. Latin America needs to be at the forefront and make a significant contribution to these studies. 

Novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak: A comprehensive review of the current literature

The contribution of vaccination to global health: past, present and future

Vacunas contra el SARS-CoV-2: ¿son una realidad para América Latina?

COVID-19 vaccines: The status and perspectives in delivery points of view

Salud y economía: una convergencia necesaria para abordar el COVID-19 y retomar la senda del desarrollo sostenible en América Latina y el Caribe

López-Cortés A. Vaccine market and production capabilities in the Americas

The named authors accept their individual responsibility for the totality of the work presented for publication.

The authors have no conflict of interests to declare.