Frequency and time trend of drug search for COVID-19 in South America; Frecuencia y tendencia temporal de búsqueda de fármacos para combatir la COVID-19 en Sudamérica

Abstract

Introduction: A variety of drugs have been used throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, but the search trend during the period 2020-2021 is unknown. Objective: To determine the frequency and time trend in the search for drugs to combat COVID-19 in 5 South American countries. Methods: A secondary data analysis study was carried out, obtaining the information through the Google Trends platform, with the search for 4 drugs and 1 substance during the entire period of the pandemic. Descriptive results were obtained. Results: The term "paracetamol" had the highest search trend in April-May in Peru, maintaining high percentages to date in all five countries. For the term "hydroxychloroquine", the search reached 100% on 15 March 2020 in Brazil. For the search term "ivermectin", Peru reached 100% of searches with the appearance of the first case reports, Brazil reached 65% only in the fifth week. In the case of "azithromycin", there was a high search trend in Peru with a peak of 100% in April-May 2020. For "chlorine dioxide", the country with the highest search rate was Argentina, in August 2020 it reached 100%. Conclusions: Some of the drugs had a similar search trend during the beginning of the pandemic, such as paracetamol, but others followed different trends, decreasing in recent months. © 2022 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.