BOILING breast milk from a mother carrying the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) will prevent her passing the infection to her baby, says the SA Medical Research Council. ”Tests have shown that all the HIV in the milk is killed when the milk is heated to 56 to 63 deg C for about 20 minutes,” the council said in its annual report. ”At these temperatures 80% of the antibodies and other nutrients are preserved in the milk. So for virtually no expense an HIV-positive mother can provide her baby with all the benefits of breast milk without exposing the infant to HIV,” it added. The discovery makes nonsense of a major national row over the government’s refusal for the public health sector to give expensive antiretroviral drugs to HIV-infected nursing mothers to prevent mother-to-child transmission. – Reuters