Breast milk could stop virus spreading, researchers claim

Whey proteins from human breast milk can inhibit the coronavirus by ‘blocking viral attachment, entry and even post-entry viral replication’, researchers found.

Whey proteins in cow and goat milk also could inhibit the virus but is less effective than human breast milk.

Human breast milk could help to prevent or treat COVID-19, according to a new study by Chinese scientists, lending support to World Health Organisation guidelines that mothers should breastfeed their newborn babies even if they are infected with the coronavirus.

Researchers from the Beijing University of Chemical Technology found that whey proteins from human breast milk can inhibit the coronavirus by “blocking viral attachment, entry and even post-entry viral replication”. It was published on biorxiv.org, a preprint site for biology studies. The paper is yet to be peer-reviewed.

Whey proteins in cow and goat milk also could inhibit the virus but is less effective than human breast milk, which is believed to have a higher concentration of antiviral factors. Human whey had an inhibition efficiency of about 98 per cent.

In the study Tong Yigang, a professor of microbiology and epidemiology, and his colleagues exposed healthy cells in human breast milk to the virus. They observed almost no viral binding or entry to these cells, and the halting of viral replication in cells that were already infected.

The breast milk, collected before the pandemic, did not have antibodies against the virus, the researchers noted.

A separate study in the US found breast milk did not spread the coronavirus and “may not be a source of infection for the infant”.

“These findings are reassuring given the known benefits of breastfeeding and human milk provided through milk banks,” the scientists wrote in a preliminary research paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study analysed 64 breast milk samples from 18 women and found nothing that could spread the virus.

Researchers are also looking into whether breast milk could be used as a treatment.

The Times