SciDev.Net has achieved record reach of its science news as the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe this year, due to its unique position as the only news outlet focussed on the impact of science on people in developing countries.
Its content was seen more than 312 million times as of the end of September. That includes visits to its homepage, social media reach, and reach achieved through syndication.
Five of the top 10 read articles published by SciDev.Net across all editions, including Middle East and North Africa, Asia and Pacific, and Latin America and Caribbean, were concerned with the world’s fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
The article ‘COVID-19 strikes are where we do not know and count’ (translated from Arabic and published on SciDev.Net’s Middle East and North Africa edition) was read over 60,000 times on the website, with other stories such as ‘Q&A about the COVID-19 vaccine with a member of the Oxford University team’ also scoring highly with over 44,000 views.
Other top COVID-19 articles include ‘The genome of the first case of coronavirus in Latin America is deciphered’ and ‘Q&A: Testimonial from a patient who survived COVID-19’.
Added to this, the publication achieved an unprecedented rise in the number of people reached through syndication as newspapers, radio stations and news websites around the world republished its articles, giving an overall syndication reach of 208 million.
That included 133 million people reached via radio through its podcast Santé, Science et Développement which was broadcast by 12 radio stations across French-speaking Africa.
Ben Deighton, Managing Editor of SciDev.Net, said, “These figures demonstrate the importance of SciDev.Net’s unique role in giving a platform for journalists from the Global South to explain how science is impacting on their communities.
“Not only are we able to explore issues around COVID-19 in the written online format but also through our recently-launched Africa Science Focus podcast which is also going from strength to strength.”
As well as concentrating on COVID-19, SciDev.Net has been mindful of other pandemics threatening global health and addressed the prospect of future virus outbreaks and what the world needs to do to stop or mitigate them in the article ‘The Next Pandemic.’
Between July and September 2020, views of all SciDev.Net content peaked at just over 166 million with the third quarter of this year registering a rise of nearly 117 million.
Additional information
Main image: Copyright: IMF / Raphael Alves, (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
About SciDev.Net
SciDev.Net is the world’s leading source of reliable and authoritative news, views and analysis on information about science and technology for global development.
Its mission is to help ensure that science and technology has a central role and positive impact on sustainable development and poverty reduction in the global South. SciDev.Net is currently owned by the Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International (CABI).
While its main office is based in the UK, SciDev.Net has a worldwide network of staff, registered users, advisors, consultants and freelance journalists, predominantly from developing countries, who drive its activities and vision.
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