Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Mar 25:41:249.
doi: 10.11604/pamj.2022.41.249.29619. eCollection 2022.

Population vitamin D status might be related to COVID-19 mortality but not with infection rate in Africa: evidence from ecological analysis

Bereket Gebremichael  1 , Demewoz Haile  1 , Sibhatu Biadgilign  2
Affiliations

Population vitamin D status might be related to COVID-19 mortality but not with infection rate in Africa: evidence from ecological analysis

Bereket Gebremichael et al. Pan Afr Med J. .

Abstract

Introduction: there is a large body of literature that has linked vitamin D status in the population with COVID-19 infection risk and disease severity. However, there is paucity of evidence in African context. Hence, this study aimed to conduct an ecological analysis to explore correlation between population level vitamin D status, COVID-19 infection, and mortality in Africa.

Methods: an ecological study was conducted using data from different open sources, published literatures and organizational databases. In the final analysis, we included 23 African countries which had data on prevalence of vitamin D deficiency, population level mean serum 25 (OH) D concentrations and COVID-19 data. We employed spearman correlation and linear regression. All tests were two-sided, and P- value <0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results: based on our analysis, the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency is positively correlated (r=0.6265; p= 0.0094) while mean 25(OH) D concentration is negatively correlated (r=-0.4941; p= 0.0194) with COVID-19 mortality. In addition, the median age of the national population (r=0.7015; p= 0.0003), prevalence of current use of tobacco (r=0.6071; p= 0.0075) and prevalence of obesity among adult population (r=0.7143; p= 0.0003) were positively correlated with both COVID-19 infection and mortality in Africa. Nonetheless, vitamin D status was not positively correlated with observed case fatality rate and COVID-19 infection rate.

Conclusion: population vitamin D status might be related to COVID-19 mortality but not with infection rate in Africa. Due to the increasing weight of evidence that shows a link between COVID-19 and vitamin D, we strongly recommend well-designed controlled studies to explore causality and clinical trials to find out the effect of vitamin-D supplementation in the treatment and prevention of COVID-19 in African settings.

Keywords: Africa; COVID-19; Vitamin D; fatality; infection; mortality.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
scatter plots between prevalence of vitamin D deficiency and COVID-19 mortality rate among 17 African countries
Figure 2
Figure 2
scatter plots between mean 25(OH) D concentration and COVID-19 mortality rate among 17 African countries
Figure 3
Figure 3
scatter plots between mean 25(OH) D concentration and observed case fatality rate among 17 African countries
Figure 4
Figure 4
scatter plots between prevalence of Vitamin D deficiency and observed case fatality rate among 17 African countries
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Ferrer R. COVID-19 Pandemic: the greatest challenge in the history of critical care. Medicina intensiva. 2020;44(6):323–324. - PMC - PubMed
    1. World Health Organization (WHO) 2019-nCoV outbreak is an emergency of international concern.The World Health Organization (WHO) 2021.
    1. World Health Organization (WHO) Weekly Operational Update on COVID-19. World Health Organization (WHO) 2021 March 29;Issue (No48)
    1. Cheng ZJ, Shan J. 2019 Novel coronavirus: where we are and what we know. Infection. 2020;48(2):155–163. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Okpokoro E, Igbinomwanhia V, Jedy-Agba E, Kayode G, Onyemata EJ, Abimiku Al. Ecologic correlation between underlying population level morbidities and COVID-19 case fatality rate among countries infected with SARS-CoV-2. medRxiv. 2020;2020(2004):2028–20082370.