Baby Tested for HIV After Being Given Stranger’s Breast Milk

A premature baby born in the U.K. had to be tested for HIV and hepatitis at just 2 weeks old after a hospital mistakenly gave her a stranger’s breast milk not once – but twice, the Daily Mail reported.

Zene Yates weighed just 3 pounds when she was born in May. Due to her size, she was given breast milk through a feeding tube while she was being cared for at Lewisham Hospital in London. But at some point, she was given a stranger’s breast milk in the neonatal ward, and then later on, she was sent home with a bottle of milk from another stranger, according to the report.

"We were devastated at the thought of what diseases she could have been given,” Zene’s mother, Sarah, said. “It would have been a nightmare.”

Tests came back negative, but Zene’s parents are still calling for action.

Phil Yates told the Evening Standard that his daughter had “twice unnecessarily been exposed to potential disease through someone else's breast milk. Something clearly has to change.”

A spokesman from the hospital said disciplinary action had been taken.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, HIV and other infectious diseases can be transmitted through breast milk, but “the risk of infection from a single bottle of breast milk, even if the mother is HIV positive, is extremely small.”

Little Zene is now 7 months old and is in good health.

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