Vitamin D Supplementation in Neonatal and Infant MIS-C Following COVID-19 Infection

Abstract

To date, the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic still represents a great clinical challenge worldwide, and effective anti-COVID-19 drugs are limited. For this reason, nutritional supplements have been investigated as adjuvant therapeutic approaches in disease management. Among such supplements, vitamin D has gained great interest, due to its immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory actions both in adult and pediatric populations. Even if there is conflicting evidence about its prevention and/or mitigation effectiveness in SARS-CoV-2 infection, several studies demonstrated a strict correlation between hypovitaminosis D and disease severity in acute COVID-19 and MIS-C (multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children). This narrative review offers a resume of the state of the art about vitamin D's role in immunity and its clinical use in the context of the current pandemic, specially focusing on pediatric manifestations and MIS-C. It seems biologically reasonable that interventions aimed at normalizing circulating vitamin D levels could be beneficial. To help clinicians in establishing the correct prophylaxis and/or supportive therapy with vitamin D, well-designed and adequately statistically powered clinical trials involving both adult and pediatric populations are needed. Moreover, this review will also discuss the few other nutraceuticals evaluated in this context.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; immunity; multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C); vitamin D.

Figure 1

(A) Pathogenic mechanism of SARS-CoV-2 infection; (B) effect of vitamin D supplementation toward SARS-CoV-2 infection. The figure was partly generated using Servier Medical Art, provided by Servier, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 unported license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).