Revisiting the role of vitamin D levels in the prevention of COVID-19 infection and mortality in European countries post

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Revisiting the role of vitamin D levels in the prevention of COVID‑19 infection and mortality in European countries post infections peak Samer Singh1,2   · Rajinder Kaur2 · Rakesh Kumar Singh3 Received: 26 May 2020 / Accepted: 30 May 2020 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

Abstract Various studies are underway to identify protective variables for the COVID-19 pandemic. We hypothesized that if indeed the vitamin D levels would be protective in the European population, as recently proposed, the correlation would become more robust when the countries had passed the infection peak as on May 12 2020, compared to April 8 2020, when the majority had not. Comparative analysis of data from the mentioned stages indicated a significant increase in negative correlation of vitamin D levels with COVID-19 cases per million population in later stage (r(20): −0.5504; R2 = 0.3029; p value: 0.0119 vs r(20): −0.4435; R2 = 0.1967; p value: 0.0501), whereas the correlation with deaths per million population became insignificant (r(20): −0.3935; R2 = 0.1549; p value: 0.0860 vs r(20): −0.4378; R2 = 0.1917; p value: 0.0535). Considering divergence of vitamin D levels from the mean in subgroups, e.g. children, women, aged, dedicated exploratory studies with carefully chosen matched target groups is advisable. Keywords  COVID-19 · SARS-CoV-2 · Correlation · Vitamin D · Europe

Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has taken the world by surprise. The spread of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) has been rapid with significant tolls in comparison to earlier coronavirus pandemic/ outbreaks. It has already infected more than 4.25 million and killed about 287 thousand people by 12th May 2020 [1]. The severity of COVID-19 and its spread has been muted in African, Asian, and South American countries. Recently, a peer-review publication had negatively correlated the serum vitamin D level in European countries with reported COVID-19 infection cases and deaths per million populations [2]. Vitamin D is known to exert a positive effect on the immunity and general health of individuals [3]. It has been * Samer Singh [email protected]; [email protected] 1



Centre of Experimental Medicine and Surgery, Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221005, India

2



Department of Microbial Biotechnology, Panjab University, Chandigarh 160014, India

3

Department of Biochemistry, Institute of Science, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221005, India



indicated to protect from other acute respiratory tract infections and the adverse outcomes [4, 5]. It has been proposed to do that through a multitude of effects including increasing the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood, modulating the immune system, expediting the recovery from acute lung injury and modulation of renin-angiotensin system including the ACE2 [6], the receptor of SARS-CoV-2 [7]. The association  of vitamin D levels with COVID-19 incidence and severity had been investigated recently [2]. A protective correlati