  Objective: The novel coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak rapidly evolved into
pandemic. Global research efforts focus on this topic and with the
collaboration of the scientific journals publication industry produced more
than 16,000 related published articles in PubMed within five months from the
onset of the outbreak. Herein, a comparison of the COVID-19 citations in PubMed
and Web of Science was performed with SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, Ebola, Zika, avian
and swine influenza epidemics. Methods: The citations were searched and
collected using the disease terms and the date of publication restriction. The
total number of PubMed citations and the HIV associated papers during the same
chronological periods were examined in parallel. The journal category and
country information of the publications were gathered from Web of Science. The
collected data were statistically analyzed and compared. Results: Significant
correlations were found between COVID-19 and MERS (CC=0.988; p=0.003; q=0.006),
Ebola (CC=0.987; p=0.003; q=0.011), and SARS (CC=0.964; p=0.015; q=0.028)
epidemics five-month pick of novel citations in PubMed. However, COVID-19
publications were accumulated earlier and in larger numbers than any other 21st
century major communicable disease outbreak. Conclusion: The acceleration and
the total number of COVID-19 publications represent an unprecedented landmark
event in the medical library history. The immediate adoption of the fast-track
peer-reviewing and publishing as well as the open access publication policies
by the journal publishers are significant contributors to this bibliographic
phenomenon.
