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Edcocp (EUA)

Scientists use human breast milk to treat prolonged Covid (54 notícias)

Publicado em 24 de junho de 2022

So Paulo: In a rare case, Brazilian scientists used breast milk to treat Covid-19 in a woman with a rare genetic disease that makes her immune system unable to fight off viruses and other pathogens.

The patient diagnosed with Covid-19 in March 2021 tested positive by RT-PCR for 124 days. She was advised by the team at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Sao Paulo to take 30 milliliters of breast milk every three hours for a week. The breast milk was donated by a woman who had been vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2.

The breast milk improved her immunity level and helped her test negative within a week, according to the case reported in an article published in the journal Viruses.

“I have been following this patient since she was a child and I was very concerned when she told me she had Covid-19. The innate immunity flaw she suffers from disrupts her entire immune system. Her inflammatory response is faulty, with few cells going to the site of inflammation and low antibody production. Depending on their virulence, infectious agents can lead to two outcomes in such cases: chronic infection or death,” said pediatrician Maria Marluce dos Santos Vilela, a professor at UNICAMP’s medical school.

Vilela explained that in humans and other mammals, the immune system normally produces five types of immunoglobulin antibodies (IgM, IgG, IgA, IgE, and IgD).

Patients with immune dysregulation syndromes have a deficiency of IgE and in some cases a complete absence of IgA, the main antibody that neutralizes viruses and other pathogens. IgA is usually present in breast milk, as well as in respiratory and gastrointestinal secretions.

The syndromes also involve very low production of IgG, normally the most abundant antibody in blood and responsible for recognizing and neutralizing antigens with which the organism has previously come into contact.

Only 157 cases of the same kind as this patient’s have been described worldwide, as reported in an article published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Vilela said the patient was deliberately treated at home to avoid hospital-related bacterial infection, which would have made her condition much worse.

In the first 15 days of infection, the patient had fever, loss of appetite, cough and asthenia (lack of energy, weakness), but to Vilela’s surprise and relief, her lungs and other systems were unaffected. After two months, her condition was the same and the researchers decided to treat her with restorative plasma.

Treatment involves a transfusion of IgG and other antibodies produced by people who have recovered from Covid.

Although her symptoms improved, with a reduction in blood inflammation markers, her post-procedure RT-PCR test remained positive even after 15 days. The patient still had mild symptoms, as well as signs of adynamia, general muscle weakness associated with prolonged infectious processes.

It was then that the team decided to conduct an experimental treatment using breast milk to increase her IgA levels. The experiment was based on a paper showing that breastfeeding women immunized with Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine produced milk with a reasonable amount of IgA.

“We asked her to take the milk orally and hold it in her mouth for a few minutes. IgA acts like a broom in that it clings to pathogens all over the gastrointestinal tract so that what is not good is eliminated in the feces. We chose a three-hour interval between doses, except at night, to give the virus no chance to multiply,” Vilela said.

The patient tested negative after one week and again twice at 10-day intervals.

(IANS)