TY - GEN
T1 - Impact of social and broadcast media on public health initiatives: Study of the COVID-19 infodemics
AU - Upadhyay, Umashankar
AU - Dhar, Eshita
AU - Bomrah, Sherali
AU - Huang, Yarou
AU - Uddin, Mohy
AU - Kabir, Ashad
AU - Syed-Abdul, Shabbir
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - The outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), reported in December 2019, was declared a pandemic in March 2020. There was no specific recommended treatment for COVID-19 until the development of COVID-19 vaccine. Healthcare providers and the Government were struggling to find appropriate treatment regimens to manage the pandemic. Medication misinformation spread through social media and broadcast media had caused panic situations and self-prescription leading to harmful drug effects and antibiotic resistance. The situation was worsened following false propaganda via both social and broadcast media that led to shortages of some medications. This study shows frequencies of searches for the medications hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), azithromycin and Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine in Google Trends across six countries. Public interest in United States, Brazil, and India leaned towards HCQ, whereas that in Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea was keener towards learning about the BCG vaccine. This article aims to inform the public about adverse drug reactions of these medications to avoid self-prescribing, assumptions of political leaders and ubiquitous social media posts in near future pandemic and emergency.
AB - The outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), reported in December 2019, was declared a pandemic in March 2020. There was no specific recommended treatment for COVID-19 until the development of COVID-19 vaccine. Healthcare providers and the Government were struggling to find appropriate treatment regimens to manage the pandemic. Medication misinformation spread through social media and broadcast media had caused panic situations and self-prescription leading to harmful drug effects and antibiotic resistance. The situation was worsened following false propaganda via both social and broadcast media that led to shortages of some medications. This study shows frequencies of searches for the medications hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), azithromycin and Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine in Google Trends across six countries. Public interest in United States, Brazil, and India leaned towards HCQ, whereas that in Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea was keener towards learning about the BCG vaccine. This article aims to inform the public about adverse drug reactions of these medications to avoid self-prescribing, assumptions of political leaders and ubiquitous social media posts in near future pandemic and emergency.
UR - https://events.digitalhealth.org.au/hisaeventsite/medinfo2023/medinfo-program/Agenda/AgendaItemDetail?id=375043a7-855b-02fa-8693-3a083f0eb724
M3 - Conference paper
T3 - Studies in Health Technology and Informatics
BT - The 19th world congress on medical and health informatics (MedInfo)
PB - IOS Press
ER -
