Mother’s milk could help fight coronavirus, study finds
- Chinese researchers found that exposure to human breast milk helps kill the virus that causes Covid-19
- Some health authorities have warned that breastfeeding could spread the virus, although the World Health Organization says mothers should continue to do so
Mother’s milk could prevent or treat Covid-19, according to a new study by Chinese scientists.
A research team in Beijing tested the effect of human breast milk on cells exposed to the Sars-CoV-2 virus. The milk was collected in 2017, well before the start of the pandemic, and the cell types tested varied from animal kidney cells to young human lung and gut cells.
The results were the same: most living virus strains were killed by the milk.
The breast milk was “blocking viral attachment, entry and even post-entry viral replication,” the team led by Professor Tong Yigang from the Beijing University of Chemical Technology wrote in two non-peer-reviewed papers posted on biorxiv.org on Friday.
Breastfeeding has previously been seen as increasing the risk of viral transmission.
In Wuhan, where the virus was first detected, newborns were separated from mothers who tested positive and fed exclusively by formula, according to Chinese media reports from February.