Table 1

Representation of African authors in COVID-19 literature

A
COVID-19 articles not related to Africa
(N=2196)
COVID-19 articles related to Africa
(N=94)
Total number of articles with any African author(s)35 (1.6%)75 (79.8%)
No of articles with African first author11 (0.5%)39 (37.2%)
No of articles with African last author5 (0.2%)18 (19.1%)
No of articles with African first and last authors1 (0.05%)13 (13.8%)
B
Authors of all COVID-19 articles not related to Africa
(N=8603)
Authors of all COVID-19 articles related to Africa
(N=619)
Total number of African authors82 (3.1%)210 (34.3%)
Mean number of authors per article across4.26.6
Mean number of African authors per article0.12.2