ABSTRACT

Introduction: COVID-19 pandemic has caused huge loss of human lives and extensive socio-economic damages. The immuno-pathology of this disease is neither clearly understood nor there are effective drugs for severe cases of COVID-19. Repurposing of available drugs for the treatment of COVID-19 is imperative.

Areas Covered: This review has gathered the evidence from PubMed, Google Scholar, WHO, and other reliable websites on COVID-19 and summarized the existing knowledge of the immuno-pathology of COVID-19. We elucidated how vitamin D through its diverse actions on immune effector cells, epithelial cells, or renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system could have a modulatory role on the pathogenic mechanisms of COVID-19. The epidemiological evidence associating vitamin D deficiency with the severity and incidence of COVID-19 is also presented. However, the evidence of clinical benefit to patients of COVID-19 from randomized controlled trials with vitamin D has not come as yet.

Expert opinion: It is now established that fatality of COVID-19 is primarily determined by hyperactivation of the host’s innate immune system in response to SARS-CoV-2 invasion, and thus the research on the immuno-modulatory and other roles of vitamin D against viral infections should be pursued vigorously. This would be also useful for future pandemics caused by other novel viruses.

摘要

简介： COVID-19 大流行已造成巨大的人员伤亡和广泛的社会经济损失。这种疾病的免疫病理学既不清楚，也没有针对 COVID-19 重症病例的有效药物。重新利用现有药物来治疗 COVID-19 势在必行。

涵盖领域：本综述收集了来自 PubMed、Google Scholar、WHO 和其他有关 COVID-19 的可靠网站的证据，并总结了 COVID-19 免疫病理学的现有知识。我们阐明了维生素 D 如何通过其对免疫效应细胞、上皮细胞或肾素-血管紧张素-醛固酮系统的不同作用对 COVID-19 的致病机制产生调节作用。还提供了将维生素 D 缺乏与 COVID-19 的严重程度和发病率联系起来的流行病学证据。然而，维生素 D 随机对照试验对 COVID-19 患者的临床益处的证据尚未出现。

专家意见：现已确定 COVID-19 的致死率主要是由宿主的先天免疫系统响应 SARS-CoV-2 入侵而过度激活决定的，因此研究维生素 D 的免疫调节和其他作用。应大力打击病毒感染。这对于未来由其他新型病毒引起的大流行也很有用。