| dc.description.abstract | Background: HIV transmission via breastfeeding has emerged as a serious global challenge lacking a straightforward solution. Furthermore, evidence on the safety and cultural feasibility of methods recommended, preventing mother to child transmission (PMTCT) approaches are limited. A durable platform technology that introduces copper-oxide into polymeric material has recently been developed. Using the same principle, copper-oxide powder was used to treat breast milk to evaluate the deactivating properties of copper on HIV virus. This project provides a contribution for what we hope might become a possible solution for reducing the transmission of HIV from mother to child via breast milk.
Methods: The focus of this study was to establish a 'proof of principle' that copper oxide can be used to deactivate HIV -1 in breast milk. A total of twenty milk samples were obtained from HIV -1 infected mothers. The milk was divided into two portions, the first portion was passed through Sartopure (Sartorius Stedim Biotech GmbH) 300 filters and filtrates collected. The second portion was treated with copper oxide powder for S minutes and passed through Sartopure (Sartorius Stedim Biotech GmbH) 300 filters to remove copper oxide. A cell line was then exposed to the filtrate from both portions for 3-4 weeks.
Results: The exposure of the milk samples to the copper-oxide during, treatment reduced by 1.8, 1.8, 2.4 and 3 (2.2Sﾱ0.S7; mean ﾱ SD) log reductions (>99% reduction) of infectious viral titers as compared to the infectious titers found in the same samples without copper oxide treatment.
Conclusions: A >99% reduction in the infectious HIV -1 in the breast milk following a short exposure to copper-oxide would significantly minimize the risk of infant becoming infected with the virus from breast milk containing HIV. Thus a successful outcome of this project, providing a basis for further studies to confirm that copper oxide does not degrade nutritional and anti-infective components in breast milk during treatment | en_US |
