Recent Trends in Malaria Vaccine Research Globally: A Bibliometric Analysis From 2005 to 2022

Aim: Malaria vaccine is one of the critical areas in tropical health research, considering the success recorded in other vaccine-preventable diseases. This study is aimed at reviewing recent trends in global malaria vaccine research from 2005 to 2022. Method: A validated search strategy was undertaken to identify scientific literature on the malaria vaccine in the Scopus database. Bibliometric indicators identified include a pattern of publication growth and citations over the study period; top authors, countries, funding organizations, and journals; keywords, including different malarial parasite species, and the overall research themes. Result: A total of 6457 documents were found from 2005 to 2022, published in 160 journals/sources in 189 countries/territories. Malaria Journal published the highest number of research outputs (478, 7.4%) within the study period, and the highest number of documents (468, 7.3%) were published in 2021. There were 214,323 total citations, with 33.2 average citations per document and 167 documents' h-index. The United States, United Kingdom, and Australia combined produced more than 60% of the publication output, with most collaboration with African countries such as Kenya. Plasmodium falciparum is the most occurring parasite species keyword (754, 11.7%), with a growing interest in Plasmodium knowlesi (30, 0.5%). Merozoite surface protein, characterization, trials, infant/children, traveler, and research/review were the six themes that emerged from the studies. Conclusion: The last one and half decades have seen a significant increase in malaria vaccine research and citations, mainly targeting vaccine development, safety, and efficacy in Africa. This necessitates more international efforts to improve the vaccines' effectiveness considering different Plasmodium species.