Vitamin D levels and SARS-CoV-2 assay results in health care workers in Brazil

Abstract

A new coronavirus, which emerged in China in December 2019 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, SARSCoV-2), has led to a severe acute respiratory syndrome (coronavirus disease 2019, COVID-19) whose severity of symptoms has been linked to different biological risk factors, such as diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and cerebrovascular diseases. Although Hastie et al. did not confirm the association between lower plasma vitamin D rules and the risk of SARSCoV-2 infection, several other studies associated vitamin D with less clinical severity and positive testing for COVID-19 (MELTZER et al., 2020). Moreover, vitamin D has a protective effect on the alveolar epithelium and reduces damage to the alveolar capillaries, preventing severe acute respiratory syndrome (SRAG). In addition to COVID-19 having a lower incidence in children and pregnant women, several studies have demonstrated protective effects, less inflammation and an association of higher concentrations of vitamin D, and lesser chances of infection by SARS-CoV-2. To our knowledge, there are no reports of this type of study in Brazil nor of the assessment of serum levels of vitamin D in health care professionals who work with patients or clinicians diagnosed with COVID-19. This study aimed to evaluate the serum concentration of vitamin D in health care professionals who work directly with patients or their biological samples from a tertiary hospital in the Northeast region, Brazil.