Who leads Marburg virus research? Gender, geography and funding in authorship, 2008 to early 2023: a bibliometric baseline before the 2023-2025 outbreaks

Women accounted for 35.1% of Marburg virus research authorships (2008–Feb 2023), but only 19.6% of last-author roles, with Africa-based leadership remaining rare.

• Why it matters: As Marburg virus disease expanded into new African countries, WHO priorities emphasized local scientific leadership; this baseline quantifies pre-outbreak authorship and funding gaps.
• What they did: The analysis covered 684 English Web of Science papers (5,700 authorships), inferring gender from first names, identifying Africa-focused papers by text, harmonising funders by country/type, and mapping themes to WHO priorities.
• The result: Only 14.6% of papers had an author based in Africa; among 102 Africa-country papers, 25.5% had a first author and 23.5% a last author from that country, while 69.0% of funded papers acknowledged US funders.

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