Health Canada has approved Canadian Blood Services’ application to eliminate the three-month deferral period for men who have sex with men to donate blood, and implement new screening measures for the donation process.
Under the current rules, men who have sex with men must wait three months from the point they were last sexually active until they are eligible to donate blood.
With the new approach, Canadian Blood Services will use a sexual behaviour-based donor-screening questionnaire for all donors of blood and plasma.
It says starting no later than Sept. 30, potential donors will be asked if they have had new or multiple sexual partners in the last three months, no matter their gender or sexual orientation.
If the answer is yes, they will then be asked whether they have had anal sex with any of those partners and if they have, then they will need to wait three months since that activity before donating blood.
The agency says asking about sexual behaviour, rather than sexual orientation, will allow it to more reliably assess the risk of infections such as HIV that can be transmitted through infusions.
It also says the shift comes after “countless hours” of work by LGBTQ and other groups, who have long advocated for a change in policy.
“While this eligibility change represents a significant step on our continual journey to build a more diverse, equitable and inclusive national transfusion and transplantation system, we still have considerable work to do to build trust and repair relationships with 2SLGBTQIA+ communities,” says Dr. Graham Sher, CEO of Canadian Blood Services.
As part of the review of the proposed changes, Health Canada sought the expertise of scientific and medical experts knowledgeable in the field of blood safety to provide input.
“The experts indicated that the proposed modelling was acceptable and that the estimated risk was extremely low and not significant,” according to the review page on Health Canada’s website. “They also concluded that the new screening criteria do not affect the safety of the blood system compared to the current 3-month deferral.”
The experts supported Canadian Blood Services proposed plan and did not recommend any changes.
“Today’s authorization is a significant milestone toward a more inclusive blood donation system nationwide, and builds on progress in scientific evidence made in recent years,” a statement by Health Canada says. “Over the past decade, Health Canada has authorized several changes to the donor deferral period for men who have sex with men, from a lifetime restriction to five years in 2013, to one year in 2016 and to three months in 2019.”
According to Health Canada’s decision, all blood donations are screened for HIV and that changing to the current model changes the risk for transmitting HIV by blood donation by such a small margin it is not significant or meaningful, and the risk will remain very low.
READ MORE: Blood service recommends Health Canada end gay blood donation ban
This is a developing story, more will be added as details become available.
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