Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the implications for its policies of the conclusions of the study by the Reina Sofia University Hospital, Córdoba, on the use of 25-hydroxyvitamin D in the treatment of covid-19, published in the Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology on 29 August 2020.

The Department has noted the findings from this study. Public Health England (PHE) is monitoring any new, high quality evidence on nutrition and COVID-19 and is seeking further advice from the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) as appropriate. On 29 June 2020, the SACN and National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published a rapid evidence review which concluded that there is currently no evidence to support taking vitamin D supplements to reduce the risk or severity of COVID-19.

In April 2020, PHE re-issued advice on vitamin D supplementation, advising that people who do not go outdoors often should consider taking a daily supplement containing 10 micrograms of vitamin D to prevent deficiency. Existing evidence also highlights that people who have dark skin – for example, have an African, African-Caribbean or south Asian background – may also not get enough vitamin D from sunlight. This advice is not about reducing the risk of COVID-19 or mitigating its effects; vitamin D is needed to keep bones and muscles healthy.