Investigators: Akila Rekima, Lieke van den Elsen, Megan Lloyd, Patricia Macchiaverni, Valerie Verhasselt
We know that breast milk is the best to prevent gastro-intestinal and respiratory infections. We are investigating areas where breastmilk is not the best such as helminths infection or Malaria. We also explore new areas where knowledge is still scarce such as COVI-19 prevention.
- Helminth infections affect more than 1 billion people in Low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). We explore how the lack of colostrum intake, a generalised practice in LMIC, influences the development of immune responses that are required to prevent helminth infection. These findings will bring additional evidence to support WHO recommendation for early initiation of breastfeeding.
- Malaria. More than 200 million cases of malaria occur yearly worldwide with the majority in Africa, where infants aged under 5 years account for nearly two thirds of all malaria deaths. This highlights the need for successful strategies of prevention of malaria infection especially in early life. Based on our recent findings on malaria antigen shedding in a small proportion of mothers, we aim to investigate the potential of human milk to naturally vaccinate children against malaria in a large clinical cohort in Uganda.
- COVID-19. About 10% of infants experience severe COVID-19 illness requiring advanced care and many infected children are unidentified carriers, spreading the disease throughout the community. Therefore, protecting this population from infection is essential. We measure the antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 in the breastmilk of infected mothers and non-infected mothers and evaluate their contribution to protect the infant. Our findings will be important for breastfeeding recommendations and to instruct the need for maternal vaccination to increase protective immunity through breast milk. Our findings will also shed light on new perspectives of therapy of infected patients
Plain language summary
We know that breast milk is the best to prevent gastro- intestinal and respiratory infections. We are investigating areas where breastmilk is not the best such as helminths infection or Malaria. We also explore new areas where knowledge is still scarce such as COVI-19 prevention. We expect the knowledge we will acquire will contribute to decrease the burden of child mortality due to infectious disease.
Funders of the project
Future Health Research and Innovation Fund COVID19
Larsson Rosenquist Foundation
External collaborators
Rick Maizels
Juan Rodriguez
Allison Imrie