Investigation of Microbial Biofilms during COVID-19 Pandemic: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Background: The Corona pandemic caused by the COVID-19 disease has become a trending topic in recent years. Moreover, microbial biofilms have received a lot of attention due to the problems they cause in industry and medicine. Objectives: The present study aimed to examine the published documents concerning the Corona pandemic and microbial biofilms. Methods: Document review was performed in Web of Science Core Collection, Scopus, and PubMed databases; then, due to the publication of more documents in the Scopus database, information from this database was used for bibliographic analysis by VOSviewer and Rstudio. Results: The obtained results showed that the process of publishing documents increased during 2005-2022, and the type of documents mostly were articles (49%) and reviews (38%). Most published cases were in the field of medicine, immunology, and microbiology. Conclusion: Studies can be examined from three medical, environmental, and engineering perspectives. The structure and composition of biofilm, the interaction of microorganisms in biofilm, the investigation of the dental biofilm infection in the infected people and waste systems, as well as the use of engineered biofilms for virus isolation are among the recommended topics for further research.