An insight on the last two decades of global research on animal tuberculosis: Bibliometric analysis

Abstract Animal tuberculosis is of global concern because of its economic and zoonotic importance. Bibliometric analysis is an important methodology used to analyze articles and other publications in literature. In this study, we performed quantitative studies on animal tuberculosis for the last two decades by March 2024. The data were retrieved from the Web of Science (WOS) database. Statistical data were set for each studied item using the VOSviewer software, with a focus on the top ten results for each item. A total of 11,155 documents were finally included in the evaluation. Results revealed that author Vordermeier H.M. had the highest number of published papers (151, 1.35%), and the publications in 2021 (693, 6.21%) were at the forefront. The United States Department of Health and Human Services was the top funding agency (1093, 9.79%), and the USA was the top nation in publications (3137, 28.12%). The most publications were in English (10898, 97.69%) and the highest publications in WOS categories were collected from Veterinary Sciences (2588, 23.2%). Research articles were the most abundant form (9271, 83.11%). Citation meso indicated that tuberculosis and leprosy (6628, 59.4%) were the top and Elsevier was the main publisher (2577, 23.1%). The results of this bibliometric analysis indicate a growing number of studies on tuberculosis in animals, which reflects the re-emergence of the disease to an alarming degree. The results can help to establish the possible forthcoming plans for its prevention and control.