ZURICH/GENEVA - Breastfeeding mothers do not seem to be passing on the new coronavirus to their infants, and based on current evidence the benefits outweigh any potential risks of transmission, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that it had carefully investigated the risks of women transmitting COVID-19 to their babies during breastfeeding.

"We know that children are at relatively low risk of COVID-19, but are at high risk of numerous other diseases and conditions that breastfeeding prevents," Tedros told a news conference Friday.

"Based on the available evidence, WHO’s advice is that the benefits of breastfeeding outweigh any potential risks of transmission of COVID-19," he said.

Anshu Banerjee, a senior advisor in WHO's Department of Reproductive Health and Research, said that only "fragments" of the virus had been detected in breast milk, not live virus.

"So far we have not been able to detect live virus in breast milk," he said. "So the risk of transmission from mother to child so far has not been established."

(Reporting by John Revill and Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

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