Canadian Journal of Medicine

The main objective of the present study is to summarize the research output about COVID-19. The search was conducted in Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, and later it was analyzed on VOSviewer. Total 34716 research documents have been published about COVID-19 till September 2020. We focused on three parameters, i.e., co-authorship pattern, citations, and co-words analysis. Based on the total number of publications, h-index, total citations, and citations per document, we provided the list of the top ten authors, institutes, and countries. Based on the total number of publications, the top-ranked author is Wiwanitkit, V., and the top institute is Harvard Medical School, USA. It is worthy to note that more than 150 countries have contributed to research output. Based on the total publications, citations, and h-index, we provided details for each continent. Later, we provided the list of the top ten countries. The highest documents are published by the USA (25.35%). We analyzed the 343682 keywords from all publications to provide a general overview or the common trends in publications. We also analyzed the top 2000 most cited documents and provided the details of the top ten authors, institutes, and countries. Based on the VOSviewer' analysis, the information on the co-occurrence of words in titles, abstracts, and keywords is provided. This may help to depict the common trends in research publications. Based on the bibliometrics results, significant work has been published on pathogenesis, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of this pandemic.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus has significantly affected every aspect of life such as health, economy, and socio-economic fabric, and research activities. This motivated us to explore the research output of more than 145 countries in health sciences research for 2019-2020. It is noteworthy that research outputs are classified in “health sciences”, health professions, dentistry, medicine, multidisciplinary, nursing and veterinary. Scopus (Elsevier BV Company, USA) was employed for the purpose. The data were independently screened, sorted, and extracted on 26^th Dec, 2020. Based on the number of publications and research growth rate, we designed the publication clubs and provided the ranking details in Table 1. if we keep the number of publications to be ten thousand (10,000), it was found that Italy has the highest growth rate (n = 29.92), followed by China (n = 28.27) and Turkey (n=25.36). Regardless of the minimum number of publications, Uzbekistan has the highest growth rate (n = 124.69), followed by Democratic Republic Congo (DRC) (n = 93.55) and Jamaica (n = 68.93). The numerical details about the research progress of more than 140 countries are provided in Table 2. It can be concluded that significant progress can be noticed in health sciences during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this note, the data about “Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Pharmaceutics” is compiled.
Scopus has included pharmacology, toxicology & pharmaceutics (all), pharmacology,
toxicology, pharmaceutics (miscellaneous), drug discovery, pharmaceutical science,
pharmacology, and toxicology in the stated category. We analyzed the publications data of
one hundred and fifty (150) countries for 2019-2020. The data were independently screened,
sorted, and extracted on 29th Dec 2020 (from Scopus). Based on the number of publications
(NoP) and growth rate (GR), we designed and ranked the top country in each “publication
club,” as shown in Table 1. Furthermore, if we ignore the minimum number of publications,
the top ten ranked countries with growth rate are Uzbekistan (n = 1388.37), Ethiopia (n =
238.64), Brunei Darussalam (n = 200.00), Gambia (n = 200.00), Mongolia (n = 171.43),
Honduras (n = 150.00), Philippines (n = 144.00), Rwanda (n = 142.86), French Polynesia (n
= 125.00) and Benin (n = 120.00). Based on the total publication record from more than 150
countries (n = 118706 for 2020 and n = 100366 for 2019), a significant and positive growth
rate (n = 18.27) has been noticed in “Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Pharmaceutics”. The
NoP and GR details of each country are provided in Table 2