Association between fatality rate of COVID-19 and selenium deficiency in China

Background: COVID-19 has impacted populations around the world, with the fatality rate varying dramatically across countries. Selenium, as one of the important micronutrients implicated in viral infections, was suggested to play roles.

Methods: An ecological study was performed to assess the association between the COVID-19 related fatality and the selenium content both from crops and topsoil, in China.

Results: Totally, 14,045 COVID-19 cases were reported from 147 cities during 8 December 2019-13 December 2020 were included. Based on selenium content in crops, the case fatality rates (CFRs) gradually increased from 1.17% in non-selenium-deficient areas, to 1.28% in moderate-selenium-deficient areas, and further to 3.16% in severe-selenium-deficient areas (P = 0.002). Based on selenium content in topsoil, the CFRs gradually increased from 0.76% in non-selenium-deficient areas, to 1.70% in moderate-selenium-deficient areas, and further to 1.85% in severe-selenium-deficient areas (P < 0.001). The zero-inflated negative binomial regression model showed a significantly higher fatality risk in cities with severe-selenium-deficient selenium content in crops than non-selenium-deficient cities, with incidence rate ratio (IRR) of 3.88 (95% CIs: 1.21-12.52), which was further confirmed by regression fitting the association between CFR of COVID-19 and selenium content in topsoil, with the IRR of 2.38 (95% CIs: 1.14-4.98) for moderate-selenium-deficient cities and 3.06 (1.49-6.27) for severe-selenium-deficient cities.

Conclusions: Regional selenium deficiency might be related to an increased CFR of COVID-19. Future studies are needed to explore the associations between selenium status and disease outcome at individual-level.