Abstract

An antiviral effect of lithium has been proposed, but never investigated for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Using electronic health records of 26 554 patients with documented serum lithium levels during the pandemic, we show that the 6-month COVID-19 infection incidence was lower among matched patients with ‘therapeutic’ (0.50–1.00) versus ‘subtherapeutic’ (0.05–0.50) lithium levels (hazard ratio (HR) = 0.82, 95% CI 0.69–0.97, P = 0.017) and among patients with ‘therapeutic’ lithium levels versus matched patients using valproate (HR = 0.79, 95% CI 0.67–0.92, P = 0.0023).

Lower rates of infection were observed for both new COVID-19 diagnoses and positive polymerase chain reaction tests, regardless of underlying psychiatric diagnosis and vaccination status.

Citations

De Picker, L., Leboyer, M., Geddes, J., Morrens, M., Harrison, P., & Taquet, M. (2022). Association between serum lithium level and incidence of COVID-19 infection. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 221(1), 425-427

DOI: https://doi:10.1192/bjp.2022.42

URI: https://www.oxfordhealth.nhs.uk/orka/title/association-between-serum-lithium-level-and-incidence-of-covid-19-infection/