November 10, 2021

expert reaction to study looking at SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in breastmilk after COVID-19 infection versus after COVID-19 vaccination

A study published in JAMA Paediatrics looks at breastmilk antibody induction, persistence, and neutralizing capacity after SARS-CoV-2 infection vs after mRNA vaccination.

Prof Richard Tedder, member of the Clinical Virology Network, said:

“My concern with this extensive, useful and thought-provoking paper is that they have used an indirect assay which is simply not the assay format of choice for a non-blood analytes such as the fluid from the breast milk.  Their proof of concept was an experiment to show the IgA such as one would find in fractionated maternal milk was detectable by their indirect immunoassay.  What is not clear is the sensitivity overall and specificity overall of this approach.  Nevertheless it is an interesting paper and their choice of determining antibody to the receptor binding domain is appropriate.”

‘Association of Human Milk Antibody Induction, Persistence, and Neutralizing Capacity With SARS-CoV-2 Infection vs mRNA Vaccination’ by Bridget E. Young et al. was published in JAMA Pediatrics at 16:00 UK time on Wednesday 10 November 2021.

DOI: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2021.4897

All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:

www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19

Declared interests

Prof Richard Tedder: “We have measured IgA antibody in an assay of different format, we use an Ig-capture assay because this would be the preferred format for any assay looking at non-blood analytes.  This is unpublished at this time.”