Avian influenza has recently been getting a
great deal of attention in the press, due to the fact that some
strains of the virus have crossed over to infect humans. There have
been over 100 cases of human infection with an avian flu strain since
1997, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The World Health
Organization (WHO) has declared a "pandemic
alert" with regard to avian influenza, meaning there is
"no or very limited human-to-human transmission," but the
WHO experts believe the world is currently "closer to another
influenza pandemic than at any time since 1968, when the last of the
previous century’s three pandemics occurred." *
Special Topics has analyzed the research on avian influenza over
the past decade and has taken a closer look at research being
published in the past two years.
Areas of particular emphasis over the past decade include case
reports, clinical features and diagnoses, as well as studies on the
molecular level, such as receptor binding, genetic comparison to the
1918 Spanish flu virus, antigenic and biological properties of the
H5N1 strain, molecular basis for virulence, and the search for genome
sequences of current flu strains. The 10-year list also includes a
study detailing the safe and effective use of the selective oral
neuraminidase inhibitor oseltamivir in the prevention of influenza.
The two-year list includes many topics similar to those on the
10-year list; however, the focus of research in the past two years
appears to have narrowed to the study of the H5N1 strain in
particular. Papers detailing the genesis of H5N1 and its potential to
cause a pandemic, the report of H5N1 in cats, a report of how H5N1 is
highly pathogenic in ducks, and a report of 10 cases of the H5N1
strain in humans in Vietnam make up a significant portion of the
two-year papers list. Other topics of interest include reports on the
conditions of live bird markets, the role of antigenic drift in
virulence, ecological and immunological factors in antigenic drift,
the use of RNAi to suppress virus replication in vitro, and the
use of reverse genetics for the development of a vaccine.
Methodology
To construct this database,
papers were extracted based on general topic keywords for Avian
Influenza. The keywords used were as follows:
poultry AND influenza* OR bird* AND influenza* OR avian AND influenza* OR avian AND flu OR bird AND flu OR H5N1 virus
The baseline time span for this database
is 1995-2005 (fourth bimonthly). The resulting database contained 997 (10 years)
and 454 (2 years) papers; 2,521 authors; 49 countries; 229 journals; and
718 institutions.
Rankings
Once the database was in place,
it was used to generate the lists of top 20 papers (two- and ten-year
periods), authors, journals,
institutions, and nations, covering a time span of 1995-2005 (fourth bimonthly,
a 10-year plus 8-month period).
The top 20 papers are ranked
according to total cites. Rankings for author, journal, institution,
and country are listed in three ways: according to total cites, total
papers, and total cites/paper. The paper thresholds and corresponding
percentages used to determine
scientist, institution, country, and journal rankings according to
total cites/paper, and total papers respectively are as follows:
| Entity: |
Scientists |
Institutions |
Countries |
Journals |
| Thresholds: |
15 |
8 |
4 |
7 |
| Percentage: |
1% |
5% |
50% |
10% |
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