الفهرس 
COVID 19 VIRUSOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
COVID-19 has emerged as a global pandemic affecting millions of people. Vitamin D deficiency is one of the risk factors for increased susceptibility to COVID-19.
COVID-19 mainly affects the respiratory, cardiovascular, and gastrointestinal systems. It was found that a significant proportion of deaths occurred more than 2 weeks after the onset of symptoms suspected of being caused by cytokine storms
Cytokine production and its role on the pathogenicity and host immune response in other important viral respiratory diseases such as those caused by influenza A and SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-COV.
Vitamin D is known to play a key role in the maintenance of bone health and calcium-phosphorus metabolism, yet many other functions of this vitamin have been recently postulated, such as modulation of the immune response in both infectious and autoimmune diseases.
Vitamin D includes fat-soluble steroids that are responsible for a wide spectrum of immunomodulatory, anti-inflammatory antifibrotic, and anti-oxidant actions. In humans, vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) and vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol) are the most abundant subtype of vitamin D
Calcitriol (1, 25-(OH)2D), is the active form of vitamin D which is generated by the 1α hydroxylase enzyme present in the kidney. Calcitriol circulates as a hormone in the blood, playing a major role in calcium and phosphate homeostasis and encourages the healthy remodeling of the bone. Besides this calcitriol, has a definite role in cellular growth, neuromuscular functions and plays an important role in immune functions, in particular with anti-inflammatory action. It inhibits the expression of inflammatory cytokine [e.g., IL-1α, IL-1β, tumor necrosis factor-α] and its insufficiency was associated with over-expression of Th1 cytokines.
Vitamin D deficiency markedly increases the chance of having severe disease after infection with covid -19. The intensity of the inflammatory response is also higher in vitamin D deficient COVID-19 patients. This all translates to increase morbidity and mortality in COVID-19 patients who are deficient in vitamin D. Keeping the current COVID-19 pandemic in view authors recommend the administration of vitamin D supplements to the population at risk for COVID-19.
In this study, the participants were divided into two groups:
group I (control): 20 healthy volunteers
group II (Patients): 60 patients were divided into three groups according to the severity of the disease:
o group IIa: 20 mild, asymptomatic covid-19 positive patients
o group IIb: 20 moderate to severe symptomatic covid-19 positive patients.
o group IIc: 20 critically ill covid-19 positive patients.
Patients in the two groups were subjected to full history taking, thorough clinical examination, and laboratory investigations including VIT D, CBC, ESR, CRP, D dimer
In the current study, we found that vitamin D deficiency is far more prevalent in patients with severe COVID–19 disease requiring ICU admission and thereby increased chances of mortality.
Therefore this study aimed to investigate the association between the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency and the infection and mortality rates of COVID-19.