Studies on Cytomegalovirus in Human Milk

• Published in: The Journal of infectious diseases 1983-09, Vol.148 (3), p.615-616
• Main Authors: Cheeseman, Sarah H., MxGraw, Bonnie R.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antibodies; Breast milk; Breastfeeding; Colostrum; Correspondence; Cytomegalovirus; Cytomegalovirus - isolation & purification; Excretion; Freezing; Humans; Milk, Human - microbiology; Specimens; Tissue samples; Viruses
• ISSN: 0022-1899; 1537-6613
• DOI: 10.1093/infdis/148.3.615a

Recent reports that women with serum antibody to cytomegalovirus (CMV) frequently excrete CMV in their milk raise the question whether donor milk could transmit CMV to susceptible premature infants, analogous to CMV transmission in the same setting by transfusion of blood from seropositive donors. A first approach to this issue is the determination of the prevalence of CMV excretion in the milk-donor population and of the effect of storage or processing procedures on the infectivity of CMV in milk. For this study, nurising mothers were recruited from the Central Massachusetts Regional Breast Milk Bank and allied nusring mothers' support groups. The results suggest that milk from CMV-seropositive women has a high likelihood of containing viable CMV, which may have been underestimated by previous culture surveys. It seems likely that storage at -- 20 C will render CMV naturally present in milk noninfectious for tissue culture, but the authors cannot say with certainty that this would be true if a sample contained CMV at a high titer.