Association entre les niveau de lithium et l'incidence de l'infection à la Covid-19

International audienceAn antiviral effect of lithium has been proposed, but never investigated for 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) vs. 'sub-therapeutic' (0.05-0.50) lithium levels (HR 0.82, 95% CI 0.69-0.97, p=0.017) and among matched patients with 'therapeutic' lithium levels vs. 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 PCR tests, regardless of underlying psychiatric diagnosis and vaccination status