Breastmilk: Not a vector for SARS-COv-2, in JAMA

JAMA has just published findings from a collaborative study showing mothers infected with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus causing COVID-19) are unlikely to transmit the virus to their infants through their breastmilk.

“While some breastmilk samples of infected women test positive for the SARS-CoV-2 RNA, none of the many samples we analyzed contained any active (replication-competent) virus, making it highly unlikely that breastmilk itself is a vector for this devastating disease,” Dr. Lars Bode, Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the Larsson-Rosenquist Foundation Mother-Milk-Infant Center of Research Excellence at the UC San Diego School of Medicine.

See full details in this open access article. 

(Findings were initially posted to the medRxiv preprint server on 16 June 2020.)

The collaborative study was launched by the University of California San Diego with its sister campus, the University of California Los Angeles, shortly after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic.

FLRF was one of many organizations to provide expedited funding for the critical research.