Scientific output on coronavirus and WHO’s Solidarity Project: a science-based choice?

ABSTRACT In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the Solidarity Program probably the largest global initiative to encourage and support research in four promising drugs and therapies (Remdesivir, Hydroxychloroquine, β interferon and the combination Lopinavir / Ritonavir) to reduce the mortality of COVID-19. Considering the potential impact of this project to restrain the current pandemic, the present study aims to investigate whether it was designed upon a scientific basis. For this proposal, we collected all documents on coronavirus indexed in Scopus database by using a search strategy based in MESH terms. Among the studied groups of documents, we looked in more detail the Coronavirus group in order to find documents related to WHO’ s drugs or to other drugs and therapies extracted from another source. The main findings indicate that the number of documents related to WHO’s drugs are higher than in the other groups and this subset of documents involves a larger number of institutions and countries. Hence, the results shown in this study illustrate that decisions by an international body, as WHO, may be science-based and not be merely bureaucratic decisions.