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With globalization, the whole world has transformed into a single platform. This has also intensified the probability of an infectious disease to spread throughout the world in no time. It rarely matters where the disease appeared first, it transmits from one part of the world to another very rapidly. The recent example for this is COVID-19, in December, 2019 a new pneumonia outbreak was detected in Wuhan, China. Later it was determined to be a new kind of Corona virus and got its name as Novel Corona virus. The outbreak has spread to almost every single country of this planet in a very little time. COVID-19 has almost infected 5 million people and have killed more than 300 thousands of people all around the world as of 20th of May, 2020 (Worldometer, 2020). World Health Organization (WHO) have characterized COVID-19 as a pandemic and have warned the world not to be careless. It has cautioned that, if the world doesn’t take this seriously it will bring unnecessary suffering as well as deaths (WHO, 2020). It has been suggested that people of all the ages are prone to be infected by this virus. But it has also been claimed that there are particularly two groups of people who are more prone to be severely affected by COVID 19. They are people with age more than 60 and people who are suffering from other medical ailments. Keeping in mind the catastrophe this virus has brought to several developed countries of the world, it has been emphasized that it is necessary to protect ourselves from COVID-19 in order to protect others. With the continuous growth in the number of COVID-19 cases, the government of several countries have appealed the citizens to stay at home. WHO has been continuously working to guide people all around the world to stay safe as well as stay physically active even when they are self-quarantined. Keeping in mind the importance of access to relevant information, WHO has partnered with WhatsApp and Facebook to launch a WHO Health Alert messaging service. This service is meant to provide updated information (like symptoms, how to protect oneself from this virus) related to COVID-19 (WHO, 2020). Novel Coronavirus or Covid-19 cases in India have shot up very steeply in the last couple of weeks and is now more than 100000 mark (Covid19India, 2020). The first case (a student of Wuhan University) in India was reported on 30th of January in the state Kerala. With the number of cases rising alarmingly, the government has put the country under lockdown since 23rd of March, 2020. With people forced to stay at home, it has been observed that Internet usage has plunged. People have started to use the Internet medium to work from home, seek knowledge, watch movies etc.
Internet users have been using this medium to gather information related to health issues for a long time. Internet has been used as a platform through which health related information is disseminated (Ahmad and Khan, 2017a). Health information providers use the platform to deliver information in different formats like text-based health information, e-mails and through chat rooms. The extensive dissemination of health related information over this platform has transformed the personal and public health (Escoffery et al, 2005). With the growing popularity of this platform, there has been a surge in the number of health information seekers and communicators (Ahmad and Khan, 2017a). This medium serves as a common platform for both the information providers as well as seekers. It has proved fruitful for the Internet users as the availability of health information over the platform empowers the individuals in better management of their health (Broom, 2005). We must have proper information related to certain health issues which helps us in combatting diseases easily. Information over the Internet has been an important source which helps in enhancing the knowledge related to several diseases (Khoo et al., 2008).