Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Date of this Version
Winter 11-29-2020
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Coronaviruses in the electron micrographs are medium-sized RNA viruses with a very distinctive profile. Coronaviruses infect many species of animals, including humans. Coronaviruses have been described for more than 50 years. Human coronaviruses started its existence in 1965, when Tyrrell and Bynoe (1966) found that a virus called B814 could transfer. It was found in human embryonic tracheal organ cultures from an adult with a common cold respiratory tract. Inoculation of human volunteers of the medium of these cultures showed the presence of an infectious agent. Two new human coronaviruses associated with respiratory diseases have been reported since identification of SARS-CoV. The Covid-19 currently has an external lipid envelope that becomes more susceptible to disinfectants than non-enveloped viruses like rotavirus, norovirus, and poliovirus. While COVID-19 is similar to the previous severe coronavirus 2 outbreak in the ARS in 2003 (SARS-CoV-2), certain symptoms and severity differ from one another.
The COVID-19 made its outbreak in December 2019 in Wuhan in China. COVID-19 is now a pandemic affecting many countries globally. As on 5 June 2020, there have been 6,535,354 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 387,155 deaths, reported to WHO.[1] In a short span of six months nearly 4 lakhs casualties are reported worldwide due to Covid-19. Though human coronavirus was reported earlier in 1965, an analysis of research in this area shows a low profile of publication count in the SCOPUS database. A search in the SCOPUS database using the term "coronavirus" in author assigned keywords for a period from 1970 to 2019 resulted in 2889 records. At the same time, a search using the same term has brought in 2340 records as on May 2020. That is the total research productivity in coronavirus in the current year 2010 (5 months period) is more or less equal to that of nearly 50 years (1970 -2019) period. This shows the severity of this virus. The present investigation is to apply scientometric indicators to the current research literature (2020) on coronavirus with an aim to identify whether there exist any relationship between the number of cases/casualties in a country and the research productivity of that country.