Analysis of Global Research Trends in Coronaviruses: A Bibliometric Investigation

Abstract

This COVID-19 (n-CoV) belongs to a large family of viruses known as ‘Coronaviruses’ that causes respiratory and intestinal illness among animals and human beings. The present study attempts to understand the trends in global research in coronavirus related diseases during the last seven decades. It thus seeks to provide an informed assessment of research in this area. Major areas of research related to this disease on which the research focused, were ‘acute respiratory syndrome’ and fusion and penetration process of this virus with ‘gastroenteritis virus’ and ‘mouse hepatitis virus’ (mhv). The USA and China were the most productive countries and the collaborative researches work in China were largely intra-national whereas in the USA, these tended to be multinational. This paper elaborates and illustrates some salient characteristic trends of research on coronavirus related diseases that has taken place in these two most prolific countries. Some interesting trends can be observed from citation analysis. Although on average, an article received 27.76 citations, wherein 10% of citations came only from the top 56 (0.34%) articles which suggest that only a few articles out of total articles received global attention. The weak collaboration link between highly cited authors also suggests that collaborative research team work in this field does not so much exist. Research activity in this area can be traced back to early 1950’s. It is not surprising that in recent years, more intense research in this area is being undertaken now than that was done before when diseases caused by this virus were more localised. It gives hope that this well directed research across different countries will provide new pathways for understanding coronavirus generated diseases including the present n-CoV which is an essential pre-requisite for developing measures to control coronavirus associated disease and develop vaccination for its prevention.