Guidance

This guideline covers vitamin D use in the context of COVID‑19. It is for adults, young people and children in hospitals and community settings. Vitamin D is important for bone and muscle health. It may also have a role in the body's immune response to respiratory viruses.

On 14 July 2022, we removed the content on vitamin D for treating COVID-19 and added information on this into NICE’s COVID-19 rapid guideline on managing COVID‑19.

When using this guideline, follow the usual professional guidelines, standards and laws (including those on equalities, safeguarding, communication and mental capacity), as described in making decisions using NICE guidelines.

See also the NICE guideline on vitamin D: supplement use in specific population groups.

This guideline is for:

  • health and care practitioners
  • health and care staff in hospital and community settings
  • commissioners

The recommendations bring together:

  • evidence from published literature on vitamin D supplementation for preventing or treating COVID-19, associations of vitamin D status with COVID-19, and indirect evidence on vitamin D supplementation for preventing acute respiratory tract infection in the general population (from the updated Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition rapid review)
  • existing national guidance and policies (including UK government advice on taking a vitamin D supplement)
  • advice from specialists working in the NHS from across the UK, including nutritionists, intensive care specialists, public health physicians, microbiologists, general practitioners and pharmacists.

We developed this guideline with the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition and Public Health England using the interim process and methods for guidelines developed in response to health and social care emergencies. We will review and update the recommendations as the knowledge base develops.

Your responsibility

The recommendations in this guideline represent the view of NICE, arrived at after careful consideration of the evidence available. When exercising their judgement, professionals and practitioners are expected to take this guideline fully into account, alongside the individual needs, preferences and values of their patients or the people using their service. It is not mandatory to apply the recommendations, and the guideline does not override the responsibility to make decisions appropriate to the circumstances of the individual, in consultation with them and their families and carers or guardian.

All problems (adverse events) related to a medicine or medical device used for treatment or in a procedure should be reported to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency using the Yellow Card Scheme.

Local commissioners and providers of healthcare have a responsibility to enable the guideline to be applied when individual professionals and people using services wish to use it. They should do so in the context of local and national priorities for funding and developing services, and in light of their duties to have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, to advance equality of opportunity and to reduce health inequalities. Nothing in this guideline should be interpreted in a way that would be inconsistent with complying with those duties.

Commissioners and providers have a responsibility to promote an environmentally sustainable health and care system and should assess and reduce the environmental impact of implementing NICE recommendations wherever possible.