Coronavirus: Bibliometric analysis of scientific publications from 1968 to 2020

The World Health Organization declared the outbreak of COVID-19as a public health emergency of international concern on January 30, 2020. Therefore, relevant research metrics would be an added value for understanding the virus for researchers.

Research outputs related to the Coronavirus were retrieved from the Web of Science database from January 1968 to March 2020 and were analyzed using MS-office, Word Cloud generator, VOS viewer, and ArcGIS software. The analysis was based on the number of research publications per year, contributing author’s clustering pattern, most preferred journals, leading publication, document type, broad research areas, commonly used keywords, the geographical distribution of publications, commonly used languages, and productive institutes.

The search retrieved 6424 Coronavirus research publications. The number of articles found in the year 1968 was 1, but it was 275 in 2019. A total of 33 clusters of authors contributed to studies on COVID-19 across the globe. The Journal of Virology had the most productivityon Coronavirus publications (n=810). An article published by Ksiazek TG et al in the New England Journal of Medicine had the maximum citation (n=2175); 90% of the research outputs were articles, broadly classified under Infectious diseases (n=5341); and the most commonly used keyword was ‘Coronavirus’. The higher number of publications was from the USA (n=2345) and the commonly used language was English (n=5948), and the most productive institute was the University of Hong Kong (n=506).

The results of the study showed that the growth pattern was not uniform, the United States, and the University of Hong Kong have played a major role in the contribution of Coronavirus research. Even though this depicts a higher scientific growth, it is an alarming sign to the community for preparedness. Under the prevailing situation of seeking better prevention, treatment and vaccination for COVID-19, in-depth research in the above portrayed metrics would be an added knowledge for the researchers.