Indian Publications on SARS-CoV-2: A Bibliometric Study of WHO COVID-19 Database

Nowadays, the whole World is under threat of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in many fatalities and forced scientific communities to foster their Research and Development (R & D) activities. As a result, there is an enormous growth of scholarly literature on the subject. In order to combat this novel coronavirus, the open access to scientific literature is essential. On this line, many reputed academic institutions and publication firms have made their literature on COVID-19 accessible to all. By maintaining the database of updated information on global literature on Coronavirus disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) is playing a pivotal role. The present study analyzed 89 Indian publications on SARS-CoV-2 accessible through WHO COVID-19 database. The research data was restricted for the period of 2/3/2020 to 12/5/2020. The analysis was carried out in light of the objectives of the study. The study found the considerable and constant growth of Indian publications on COVID-19 from mid-April. It is interesting to note that the prolific authors belong to either AIIMS or ICMR institutes. Majority of the COVID-19 articles were found to be collaborative publications. The study noticed that no research publications on COVID-19 have appeared from North Eastern region. Regarding the research output on COVID-19, the performance of largest states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar was found to be poor. Delhi state contributed highest publications on COVID-19. The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi was the most productive institution in terms of publications. It is also important to note that the central government undertakings like AIIMS and ICMR, New Delhi and its affiliated institutions shared largest proportion of publications on COVID-19. The Indian Journal of Medical Research has emerged as the productive journal contributing highest number of the publications. The highest contribution in COVID-19 research takes the form of journal articles. In terms of research area, the majority of the publications were related to Epidemiology. The study reported covid, coronavirus, India, pandemic, sars etc. as the frequently occurred keywords in the COVID-19 publications. The highly cited publications were of evidenced based studies. It is observed that the studies pertaining to virology, diagnosis and treatment, clinical features etc. have received highest citations than general studies on epidemiology or pandemic.