The COVID-19 epidemic in December 2019 had a significant negative impact on people's health and economies all across the world. The most effective preventive measure against COVID-19 is vaccination. Therefore, the development and production of COVID-19 vaccines is booming worldwide. This study aimed to analyze the current state of that research and its development tendency by bibliometrics. We conducted a thorough search of the Web of Science Core Collection. VOSviewer1.6.18 was used to perform the bibliometric analysis of these papers. A total of 6,325 papers were finally included. The USA maintained a top position worldwide. Shimabukuro Tom T and Harvard University were the most prolific author and institution. The Vaccines was the most published journal. The research hotspots of COVID-19 vaccines can be classified into vaccine hesitancy, vaccine safety and effectiveness, vaccine immunogenicity, and adverse reactions to vaccines. Studies on various vaccination types have also concentrated on efficacy against continuously developing virus strains, immunogenicity, side effects, and safety.
Keywords: COVID-19 vaccine; VOSviewer; bibliometric analysis; research topics; research trends.