The female patient had a genetic disease that dysregulates the immune system, impairing its inflammatory response and antibody production. The virus was eliminated after week-long ingestion of breast milk donated by a woman who had been vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2. The case is reported in the journal Viruses by researchers at the University of Campinas in Brazil
The female patient had a genetic disease that dysregulates the immune system, impairing its inflammatory response and antibody production. The virus was eliminated after week-long ingestion of breast milk donated by a woman who had been vaccinated
Researchers at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in São Paulo state, Brazil, have resorted to a thoroughly unconventional method to treat COVID-19 in a patient with a rare genetic disease that makes her immune system unable to combat viruses and other pathogens. She was instructed 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. After testing positive for 120 days by RT-PCR, the patient then tested negative.
The case is reported in an article published in the journal Viruses. The authors were supported by FAPESP via four projects (16/00194-8, 18/14372-0, 18/14389-0, and 20/04558-0).
"I've followed this patient since she was a child, and I was very concerned when she told me she had COVID-19. The innate immunity error from which she suffers dysregulates her entire defense system. Her inflammatory response is defective, with few cells going to the site of the 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 and last author of the article.
Vilela explained that the immune system in humans and other mammals normally produces five types of immunoglobulin antibody (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 respiratory and gastrointestinal secretions. The syndromes also entail very low production of IgG,…