Global Trend of Research Publications on Coronavirus during 2016-2020

a critical and comparative analysis among top ten countries

Abstract

Human civilization witnessed different strain of coronavirus out of which last three -  SARS-
CoV (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus), MARS-CoV (Middle East Respiratory
Syndrome Coronavirus) and SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) found highly pathogenic and caused
fatal impact on humankind in the 21 st  century, especially COVID-19 emerged at the end of 2019
proved extremely dreadful which created global pandemic and still circulating in multiple
variants in spite of continuous study and research worldwide to control the outbreak with
protective measures, medicines and vaccines. Researches on coronavirus continued for decades
by the scientists and researchers worldwide which suddenly boosted up with the advent of
COVID-19. The study attempts to provide a critical and comparative analysis of research
publications on the topic “coronavirus” among top ten countries of the world during 2016-20 as
indexed in Web of Science (WOS) and retrieved on 27 th  July, 2021 with country-wise
publication trend in the global race, citation, h-index, prolific authors, authorship pattern, degree
of collaboration and most preferred journals.