How made-in-India pill Dolo 650 became India’s ‘favourite snack’ in Covid waves

If you believed the pandemic was finally over, you were mistaken.It has reared its ugly head by releasing Omicron, a new variant.

Since COVID-19 cases have been on the rise, demand for the drug Dolo 650 has been high. 

Dolo 650 is a popular painkiller that can be found in almost every home and is used to treat aches, pains, and fevers. 

According to data, since the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, India has sold more than 3.5 billion pills of the anti-fever drug.

Fever, one of the most common symptoms of COVID-19, has pushed sales of this oval-shaped white pill to treble in the last two years, despite the fact that paracetamol pills are the most commonly used cold and fever treatments.

If all 3.5 billion tablets were stacked vertically, it would be nearly 6,000 times the height of Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain, or 63,000 times the height of the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building.

Yes, it is correct. In the last two years, Dolo, a 1.5 cm-long paracetamol tablet, has sold far more than Crocin, the standard paracetamol tablet. 

Before the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2019, India sold around 75 million strips of Dolo pills, according to statistics from the research firm IQVIA.

The medicine's annual sales increased to 94 million strips (each strip containing 15 tablets), or 1.4 billion tablets.

By November 2021, it had risen to 145 million strips (twice as much as in 2019) or 2.2 billion tablets.

It's worth noting that the first wave of COVID-19 entered India in September 2020, while the second wave, which caused the greatest deaths, arrived in May 2021.

In total, more than 35 million instances have been reported in India. As a result, during both pandemic years, more than 350 crore Dolo tablets were sold. 

Dolo is currently the second most popular anti-fever and analgesic tablet in India, with a turnover of Rs 3.1 billion in 2021, only ahead of GSK's Calpol, which has a turnover of Rs 3.1 billion.

Crocin is the sixth-largest brand in the category, with sales of Rs 231 million in double digits.

On this occasion, Twitter users coined the hashtag # Dolo650, which is currently trending.

Memes about the Dolo 650 have sprung up on Twitter, bringing the usual dose of humour to the platform.

Take a look at some of the most popular memes on Twitter:

(With inputs from agencies)