Background Vitamin D deficiency is a widespread health problem, affecting up to 1 billion people worldwide.[1] It has gained increasing recognition in developing countries, including sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where sunshine prevails year-round.[2–4] Previous studies in SSA have found highly variable prevalence of vitamin D deficiency , affecting 9-49% of [5-7] Cultural norms, religious practices, skin pigmentation, malnutrition, diet, comorbidities such as tuberculosis, and medications may contribute to vitamin D deficiency in this context. [2, 3]Traditionally, vitamin D deficiency has been known for its effects on bones, causing impaired mineralization, rickets, and osteomalacia.[1, 3] However, many new roles for vitamin D have recently come to light, with increased consequences attributed to its deficiency.[1] Vitamin D deficiency is increasingly associated with infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and non-communicable diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and stroke.[1, 6, 8–11]Studies in other settings have described a greater burden of vitamin D deficiency D among acute stroke patients compared to non-stroke subjects in the same setting.[11, 12] Suboptimal vitamin D has been associated with many modifiable risk factors for stroke, including physical inactivity, hypertension, dyslipidemia, obesity and diabetes mellitus.[8–10, 13–15] Furthermore, longitudinal studies have further demonstrated that vitamin D is an independent predictor of cardiovascular disease and stroke.[8, 12] The relationship between vitamin D deficiency and stroke in large vessel and other atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases may be mediated by atherogenic inflammatory cytokines.[ 16 ]Among stroke cases... halfway through the paper...but the new Roche total vitamin D assay we used demonstrated a strong correlation with HPLC/MS and established radioimmunoassay techniques.[27] Due to the design of our study, we are unable to show a temporal relationship between vitamin D deficiency and stroke events. However, studies elsewhere have often found that vitamin D is associated with stroke and may actually predict stroke.[12] Ongoing studies elsewhere are investigating the role of vitamin D replacement on noncommunicable diseases, including cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, and cancer.[18]Conclusions Vitamin D deficiency was prevalent in 14.8% of patients hospitalized for stroke. Future studies evaluating the role of vitamin D deficiency among stroke patients and other cardiovascular patients are needed in our setting, particularly considering the increased longevity and indoor lifestyle in our population..