喵咪社区

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a novel coronavirus that causes severe infection in the respiratory system. Since the immune status plays an essential role in combating COVID-19, herbal medicines, which have an immunomodulatory effect, may help prevent and even treat COVID-19. is one of the herbal medicines with antiviral and immunomodulatory activities, and its therapeutic effectiveness makes it a promising add-on therapy for COVID-19. In addition, vitamin D3 has an immunomodulatory role, but the effect of therapeutic vitamin D3 supplementation in SARS-CoV-2 infection is still not well-known. This study aims to investigate the effects of and vitamin D3 as single supplemental therapies and in combination on viral clearance indicated by a negative polymerase chain reaction and the alleviation of symptoms during the study follow-up duration of 14聽days. The study design was an open-label randomized controlled clinical trial conducted at the Respiratory Hospital at the Kobry El Qobba Armed Forces Medical Complex. In total, 120 COVID-19 patients with mild to moderate symptoms were randomly assigned to four groups, with thirty patients each, as follows: Group 1 received an oral dose of 900聽mg through 450聽mg soft gelatin capsules twice daily for two weeks; Group 2 received 2,000 IU of vitamin D3 through 1000-IU tablets given as two tablets, once daily; Group 3 received 900聽mg of and 2,000 IU of vitamin D3 in the same manner of dosing as in the previous groups; and Group 4 was the control group. All groups received standard therapy for COVID-19 infections and clinical management of COVID-19's clinical symptoms. The -vitamin D3 combination in addition to the standard therapy for COVID-19 infections significantly contributed to the alleviation of most COVID-19 symptoms: 50% of patients were free of cough after 7聽days, 70% showed an absence of fatigue after 4聽days, 80% had no headache after 5聽days, 90% were free of rhinorrhea after 7聽days, and 86.7% of the patients had no dyspnea after 7聽days. Moreover, patients in the four studied groups showed a reduced median temperature after 3聽days of treatment. Negative results of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test recorded on the 7th and 14th聽day of therapy were superior in the and vitamin D3 combination arm compared to those of the other studied arms where the value of the odds ratio (OR) on the 7th聽day was 0.13 with 95% CI: 0.03-0.45 and that of the 14th day was 0.09 with 95% CI: 0.02-0.3. The results of this study showed a promising therapeutic benefit of the administration of and vitamin D3 combination in COVID-19 patients with mild to moderate symptoms. Additionally, the remarkable viral clearance in a short time interval and reduction in the severity and progression of symptoms recommended the use of this combination as an add-on therapy for the management of COVID-19 patients. ClinicalTrials.gov, Identifier: NCT04981743.