Coronavirus: A scientometrics study of World Research Publications

The present study analyses the world research output on Coronavirus using various Scientometrics indicators. Bibliographic records for the study were retrieved from the Scopus, a multidisciplinary citation database for publications till 31st December 2019. The study analyzed 18,116 publications (from its first publication in 1951) from 1951 to 2019. The results showed the acceleration in the research publications after the SARS outbreak in the year 2004. The Degree of Collaboration (DC) observed was 0.87 for the overall period of the study and 0.60 Collaborative Coefficient (CI). The Journal of Virology was the most preferred journal with 1128(6.55%) publications to its credit and Luis Enjuanes was the most productive author in the field of Coronavirus research. The University of Hong Kong was the top productive institution in the world and the USA was the most productive country in terms of the number of publications. The study found the direct relationship between the acceleration in the research publications and Coronavirus outbreaks, i.e. one during the SARS outbreak (2003–2004) and another during the MERS outbreak (2012–2015).