Objective  To examine status quo and development trends of research worldwide on highly pathogenic pathogens.

  Methods  In this study, highly pathogenic pathogens refered to 29 pathogens classified as pathogens of first category in the List of Human Pathogenic Microorganisms released by National Health Commission on December 31, 2021. Research papers relevant to the 29 pathogens published worldwide from 1900 to 2022 were retrieved based on thematic search through Web of Science database and were analyzed visually and multi-perspectively using gCLUTO and bicomb and research themes, hotspots and clustering topics of the papers were summarized.

  Results  Totally 27 840 papers were retrieved, of which, 6 970, 6 691, and 6 459 were relevant to the top three pathogens most frequently studied: yellow fever virus, Ebola virus, and variola virus. The number of research papers relevant to the 29 pathogens increased during 2012 – 2022. The first three countries with more authors submitted relevant research papers are United States, United Kingdom, and Germany; the authors from the United States submitted more research papers on Ebola virus, yellow fever virus, variola virus, and monkeypox virus compared to the authors from United Kingdom and Germany. The results of high-frequency keywords and thematic clustering analysis showed that investigations on the development of vaccine and drugs related to the highly pathogenic pathogens were research hotspots in those published papers.

  Conclusion  Chinese scholars should pay attentions to international research on highly pathogenic pathogens for the prevention of the emerging and fulminating infectious diseases and biosafety.