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. 2022 Dec 23;78(1):242-251.
doi: 10.1093/jac/dkac382.

Outpatient purchasing patterns of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin in the USA and Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic: an interrupted time series analysis from 2016 to 2021

Martin Ho  1 , Mina Tadrous  1   2   3 , Anita Iacono  4 , Katie Suda  5   6 , Tara Gomes  1   2   4   7
Affiliations

Outpatient purchasing patterns of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin in the USA and Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic: an interrupted time series analysis from 2016 to 2021

Martin Ho et al. J Antimicrob Chemother. .

Abstract

Background: Hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin received widespread attention after initial studies suggested that they were effective against COVID-19. However, several of these studies were later discredited.

Objectives: We explored the impact of scientific articles, public announcements and social media posts on hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin purchases in the USA and Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective, population-based time series analysis of retail hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin purchases in the USA and Canada from February 2016 through to December 2021, using IQVIA's Multinational Integrated Data Analysis database. We fitted the purchasing rates with interventional autoregressive integrated moving average models. We used Google Trends to identify the most influential interventions to include in the models.

Results: There were significant pulse increases in hydroxychloroquine purchases in March 2020 in both the USA (P < 0.0001) and Canada (P < 0.0001). For ivermectin, there were no significant changes in April 2020 in either the USA (P = 0.41) or Canada (P = 0.16); however, significant pulse increases occurred from December 2020 to January 2021 in both the USA (P = 0.0006) and Canada (P < 0.0001), as well as significant ramp increases from April to August 2021 in both the USA (P < 0.0001) and Canada (P = 0.02). The increases in ivermectin purchases were larger in the USA than in Canada.

Conclusions: Increases in hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin purchasing rates aligned with controversial scientific articles and social media posts. This highlights the importance of scientific integrity and disseminating accurate epidemiologic information during pandemics.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Population-adjusted hydroxychloroquine purchasing rates, Google Trends, and COVID-19 case rates in (A) the United States and (B) Canada.
The Google Trends score ranges from 0 to 100. The y-axes for COVID-19 case rates are not shown, but cases in the U.S. began in January 2020 and peaked in December 2020 (19.8 per 1000 population). COVID-19 cases in Canada began in January 2020 and peaked in December 2021 (11.1 per 1000 population). Vertical lines represent major events such as in vitro studies, clinical studies, public announcements, and social media posts (details in Table 1).
Figure 2.
Figure 2.. Population-adjusted ivermectin purchasing rates, Google Trends, and COVID-19 case rates in (A) the United States and (B) Canada.
The Google Trends score ranges from 0 to 100. The y-axes for COVID-19 case rates are not shown, but cases in the U.S. began in January 2020 and peaked in December 2020 (19.8 per 1000 population). COVID-19 cases in Canada began in January 2020 and peaked in December 2021 (11.1 per 1000 population). Vertical lines represent major events such as in vitro studies, clinical studies, review articles, and public announcements (details in Table 2). Figure S1 in the supplement is an expanded view of Figure 2B.
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