Laurence Dollimore
A BRITISH politician has praised Andalucia for using Vitamin D to fight COVID-19 in its care homes.
David Davis lauded Spain’s most populous region in parliament on Wednesday, asking Prime Minister Boris Johnson if he would be following its good example.
Specifically, the former Brexit Secretary wanted to know if there were plans to administer activated Vitamin D, or Calcifediol, to nursing home residents.
“We can learn something from our European friends,” Davis, MP for Haltemprice and Howden, said at Prime Minister’s Questions.
“Andalucia, a Spanish province of eight million people, had a COVID death rate of about 190 deaths per million in November, higher than ours at the time.
“After giving activated Vitamin D, Calcifediol, to care home residents and some GP patients, that death rate almost halved, whilst ours was still doubling.”
He added: “Can he (Johnson) ask his advisors to look urgently again at the very latest Spanish research about this cheap, safe an apparently effective treatment?”
Johnson said he would continue to monitor ‘all the evidence’ about the treatment, adding that he was ‘well aware of it.’
Does Vitamin D help treat coronavirus?
There is growing evidence that prescribing Vitamin D to COVID patients can decrease the mortality rate and severity of the illness.
Vitamin D boosts the immune system and there is evidence that it acts as an anti-inflammatory.
“If you’re deficient in vitamin D that does have an impact on your susceptibility to infection,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the US, in a recent Instagram Live interview with actress Jennifer Garner.
“I would not mind recommending – and I do it myself – taking vitamin D supplements.”
It comes after a small study of 50 coronavirus patients who were all treated with calcifedol in Granada found that only one had to be sent to the ICU.
Meanwhile, out of 26 patients who did not receive the Vitamin D treatment, 13 were sent to intensive care.
“Our pilot study shows that administration of a high dose of calcifediol or 25-hydroxyvitamin D significantly reduced the need for ICU treatment of hospitalised COVID-19 patients,” the researchers said.
