Abstract
BackgroundIn December 2019, a pneumonia caused by a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in Wuhan, China and has rapidly spread around the world since then.AimThis study aims to understand the research gaps related to COVID-19 and propose recommendations for future research.MethodsWe undertook a scoping review of COVID-19, comprehensively searching databases and other sources to identify literature on COVID-19 between 1 December 2019 and 6 February 2020. We analysed the sources, publication date, type and topic of the retrieved articles/studies.ResultsWe included 249 articles in this scoping review. More than half (59.0%) were conducted in China. Guidance/guidelines and consensuses statements (n = 56; 22.5%) were the most common. Most (n = 192; 77.1%) articles were published in peer-reviewed journals, 35 (14.1%) on preprint servers and 22 (8.8%) posted online. Ten genetic studies (4.0%) focused on the origin of SARS-CoV-2 while the topics of molecular studies varied. Nine of 22 epidemiological studies focused on estimating the basic reproduction number of COVID-19 infection (R0). Of all identified guidance/guidelines (n = 35), only ten fulfilled the strict principles of evidence-based practice. The number of articles published per day increased rapidly until the end of January.ConclusionThe number of articles on COVID-19 steadily increased before 6 February 2020. However, they lack diversity and are almost non-existent in some study fields, such as clinical research. The findings suggest that evidence for the development of clinical practice guidelines and public health policies will be improved when more results from clinical research becomes available.
Highlights
A new type of coronavirus that began in Wuhan, China in late 2019 has spread across the world since
We performed a systematic search of MEDLINE via PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang Data and China Biology Medicine (CBM) on 27 February 2020 with the terms “COVID-19” OR “SARS-CoV-2” OR “2019 novel coronavirus” OR “2019-nCoV” OR “Wuhan coronavirus” OR “novel coronavirus” OR “Wuhan seafood market pneumonia virus” OR “Wuhan virus”, published between 1 December 2019 and 6 February 2020
We identified 1,511 records, 280 of which were excluded as duplicates
Summary
A new type of coronavirus (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; SARS-CoV-2) that began in Wuhan, China in late 2019 has spread across the world since . As of 24:00 on 6 February 2020, over 31,000 cases and 636 deaths had been confirmed in China [1]. In December 2019, a pneumonia caused by a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in Wuhan, China and has rapidly spread around the world since . Methods: We undertook a scoping review of COVID-19, comprehensively searching databases and other sources to identify literature on COVID-19 between 1 December 2019 and 6 February 2020. Publication date, type and topic of the retrieved articles/studies. The number of articles published per day increased rapidly until the end of January
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