Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 May 26;17(11):3766.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph17113766.

Research Progress of Coronavirus Based on Bibliometric Analysis

Fei Zhai  1   2 , Yuxuan Zhai  1   2 , Chuang Cong  3 , Tingyan Song  1 , Rongwu Xiang  1   2 , Tianyi Feng  4 , Zhengxuan Liang  5 , Ya Zeng  6 , Jing Yang  6 , Jie Yang  6 , Jiankun Liang  1   2
Affiliations

Research Progress of Coronavirus Based on Bibliometric Analysis

Fei Zhai et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: COVID-19 has become one of the most serious global epidemics in the 21st Century. This study aims to explore the distribution of research capabilities of countries, institutions, and researchers, and the hotspots and frontiers of coronavirus research in the past two decades. In it, references for funding support of urgent projects and international cooperation among research institutions are provided.

Method: the Web of Science core collection database was used to retrieve the documents related to coronavirus published from 2003 to 2020. Citespace.5.6.R2, VOSviewer1.6.12, and Excel 2016 were used for bibliometric analysis.

Results: 11,036 documents were retrieved, of which China and the United States have contributed the most coronavirus studies, Hong Kong University being the top contributor. Regarding journals, the JournalofVirology has contributed the most, while in terms of researchers, Yuen Kwok Yung has made the most contributions. The proportion of documents published by international cooperation has been rising for decades. Vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 are under development, and clinical trials of several drugs are ongoing.

Conclusions: international cooperation is an important way to accelerate research progress and achieve success. Developing corresponding vaccines and drugs are the current hotspots and research directions.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; bibliometrics; coronavirus.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The trend of annual publications on the research of coronavirus during 2003–2020.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Dual map overlay of journals publishing research on coronavirus.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Co-authorship network of authors.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Co-authorship network of organizations. (Note: the size of a circle is in proportion to the number of documents of the organization, the color of a circle corresponds to the year, and the thickness of the lines is proportional to the cooperation frequency).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Geographical distribution of coronavirus publications. (Note: regions with no colors in the map have no available data).
Figure 6
Figure 6
Collaboration network of countries.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Documents and citation network of journals.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Co-occurrence network of keywords.
Figure 9
Figure 9
Geographical distribution of SARS-CoV-2 publications. (Note: regions with no colors in the map have no available data).
Figure 10
Figure 10
Co-authorship network of countries.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Berry M., Gamieldien J., Fielding B.C. Identification of New Respiratory Viruses in the New Millennium. Viruses Basel. 2015;7:996–1019. doi: 10.3390/v7030996. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Alexander E., Gorbalenya S.C., Baker R.S., Baric R.J., de Groot C., Drosten A.A., Gulyaeva B.L., Haagmans C., Lauber A.M., Leontovich B.W., et al. Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus: The species and its viruses–a statement of the Coronavirus Study Group. BioRxiv. 2020 doi: 10.1101/2020.02.07.937862. - DOI
    1. Guan W.J., Ni Z.Y., Hu Y., Liang W.H., Ou C.Q., He J.X., Liu L., Shan H., Lei C.L., Hui D.S., et al. Clinical Characteristics of Coronavirus Disease in China. N. Engl. J. Med. 2020;382:1708–1720. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2002032. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ceraolo C., Giorgi F.M. Genomic variance of the 2019-nCoV coronavirus. J. Med. Virol. 2020;92:522–528. doi: 10.1002/jmv.25700. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wong M.C., Cregeen S.J.J., Ajami N.J., Petrosino J.F. Petrosino. Evidence of recombination in coronaviruses implicating pangolin origins of nCoV-2019. BioRxiv. 2020 doi: 10.1101/2020.02.07.939207. - DOI

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources