Assessment of Global Performance on COVID-19 Research during 1990-2019

An Exploratory Scientometric Analysis

Abstract

The recent outbreak of novel coronavirus (COVID-19), a pandemic threat to humans, has raised huge concerns worldwide. It causes intestinal and respiratory infections of both humans and animals. The main objective of the present study was to explore the Scopus database to find out the research publications made on novel coronavirus during the last three decades and quantify its performance on a global scale. Scopus database has been used to retrieve related literature on novel coronavirus during 1990-2019. In total, 21,559 documents were published with an average of 23.55 citations per document. Research publications showed a noticeable and steep growth after 2002. Researchers from 157 countries or territories participated in coronavirus articles with the USA noted with the highest number of publications (6,378), highest citations (223,641). The Journal of Virology registered as the most preferred journal among the research community with 1,055 (4.89%) articles and the top productive organization was The University of Hong Kong. The author, Yuen, K.Y. contributed to the highest number of research publications during this time span. The highest proportion of documents was research articles (65.74%) and English was the most preferable language of communication in the research domain. Besides, ‘coronavirus’ and ‘SARS’ were the most frequently used term. It is quite coherent that during and within 1-3 years of any major outbreak of such viral infected disease, the number of publications all over the globe has also been increased by 2-4 times than the previous year. Therefore, it is expected that during 2020-2023, the number of yearly publications regarding coronavirus research would have reached up to 1500 or more than that.