Online searches for Hydroxychloroquine rose by over 12,000% amid Covid-19: Report

Online searches for terms related to “coronavirus cures” including the anti-malarial drug Hydroxychloroquine has seen a massive surge over the last month owing to the Covid-19 pandemic according to a recent study by online content management platform SEMrush.

According to the study Google search for the term, Hydroxychloroquine rose by 12,245 per cent between February and March 2020. The searches for two drugs similar to Hydroxychloroquine, namely, Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine Sulfate rose by 2,384 per cent and 1,577 per cent respectively between February and March 2020, the report said.

“The SEMrush study shows there was a surge in searches with the keyword ‘coronavirus symptoms’. From being searched 1.8M times in February 2020, the keywords went to being searched a whopping 14.2M in times in March 2020,” the report read.