Presence of Ebola virus in breast milk and risk of mother‐to‐child transmission: synthesis of evidence

Abstract

To help inform global guidelines on infant feeding, this systematic review synthesizes evidence related to the presence of the Ebola virus (EBOV) in breast milk and its potential risk of viral transmission to the infant when breastfeeding. We relied on a comprehensive search strategy to identify studies including women with suspected, probable, or confirmed EBOV infection, intending to breastfeed or give breast milk to an infant. Our search identified 10,454 records, and after deduplication and screening, we assessed 148 full texts. We included eight studies reporting on 10 breastfeeding mothers and their children (one mother with twins), who provided breast milk samples for assessment. EBOV was detected via RT-PCR or viral culture in seven out of ten breast milk samples. Four out of the five-breastfed infants with EBOV-positive breast milk were found positive for EBOV infection, and all of these EBOV-positive infants died. Since previous reports have detected EBOV in tears, saliva, sweat, and contaminated surfaces, with the current evidence, it is not possible to conclude with certainty that breast milk was the main route of EBOV transmission.

Impact of major disease outbreaks in the third millennium on adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health and rights in low and/or middle-income countries: a systematic scoping review protocol

“…The latter endanger women as they have significant roles in the ceremony. Pregnant women can also transmit the virus to their babies either in-utero or through breastmilk 38–40…”

“…In women who have contracted the disease during pregnancy, the virus remains in the placenta, amniotic fluid and fetus. In those women who have been infected during breastfeeding, the virus could persist in breast milk 38 45–50…”

“…Pregnant women can also transmit the virus to their babies either in-utero or through breastmilk. [38][39][40] In the past century, multiple outbreaks of the Ebola virus occurred; the first one was in Zaire (currently known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Sudan in 1976. The second outbreak occurred in Sudan around 1979.…”

Mixed-methods assessment of health and mental health characteristics and barriers to healthcare for Ebola survivors in Beni, Butembo and Katwa health zones of the Democratic Republic of Congo

“…31 40 Despite a lack of evidence that breast milk can transmit EVD from mother to child, DRC recommendations state that EVD survivors with cleared viraemia should wait for two consecutive negative tests to resume breast feeding. [41][42][43] Thus, nearly half of the pregnant survivors are planning to breastfeed even with guidelines that suggest they should not. And without evidence-based research on EVD and breastmilk, discouraging breast feeding can have significant effects on infant mortality and morbidity and setback public health efforts and gains in promoting breast feeding especially within the DRC context.…”

Orf Virus Detection in the Saliva and Milk of Dairy Goats

“…Combined with the finding of the present study, milk-mediated transmission of ORFV from mothers to newborn kids may be a major cause of this phenomenon, and viral particle positivity in the milk should be considered as an important risk factor of kids Orf. In fact, mother-to-child transmission via milk is not uncommon for a wide range of viruses such as human immunodeficiency virus ( Suarez et al, 2019 ), Zika virus ( Sotelo et al, 2017 ), Ebola virus ( Medina-Rivera et al, 2021 ), bovine vaccinia virus ( Abrahao et al, 2009 ), bovine leukemia virus ( Barzegar et al, 2021 ), tick-borne encephalitis virus ( Ronai and Egyed, 2020 ) and peste des petits ruminants virus ( Clarke et al, 2018 ). Bearing this in mind, another feeding style of goats under which the kids are kept separately from their mothers and regularly given pasteurized milk collected together from all the lactating goats, which style is also adopted by many goat farms of China, should thus be encouraged.…”