Vitamin D deficiency among apparently healthy children and children with common medical illnesses in Sub-Saharan Africa: A systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Studies show that 25 (OH) D status appears to have beneficial influence on the incidence and severity of some types of infections. However, studies with vitamin D supplementation on young children produced conflicting results. This study was conducted to assess and compare the pooled prevalence of vitamin D deficiency among healthy and sick children in sub-Saharan Africa. METHOD: A systematic review of PubMed, CINAHL, Web of science, global health and Google scholar electronic databases was conducted. Both published and unpublished observational studies conducted among under-five children in the year 2010–2020 were included. STATA Version 14 was used for analysis. Heterogeneity of studies was assessed using I(2) test. A random-effects model was used to estimate the pooled prevalence among both healthy and sick children. RESULT: A total of 1212 articles were retrieved from data bases, of which 10 papers were included. The pooled prevalence of vitamin D deficiency among healthy children was 50.06% with mean serum vitamin D level of 41.06 nm/L. The pooled prevalence among the sick children was 39.36% with 66.96 nm/L of mean concentration. The pooled prevalence among healthy children was significantly higher compared to those who have common medical illnesses and the pooled mean concentration among the sick was also much higher than the mean concentration among healthy children. CONCLUSION: The pooled prevalence among both groups of population was significantly high and a concerning public health problem. The prevalence among healthy children was much higher as compared to sick children.