Canada may shorten deferral for MSM blood donors
Photo by Charles Haymond
ANAHEIM, CA—Lifting the lifetime ban on blood donations from men who have sex with men (MSM) has not altered the safety of the blood supply in Canada, according to a new study.
The study showed no increase in the rate of HIV-positive blood donations since Canada changed its policy regarding MSM blood donors, allowing MSM to donate if they have not had sexual contact with another man in the last 5 years.
Because of this finding, Canada may shorten the deferral period for MSM blood donors to 1 year, according to Sheila F. O’Brien, PhD, of Canadian Blood Services in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Dr O’Brien mentioned this possibility and presented data from the study at the 2015 AABB Annual Meeting (abstract S35-030E*).
Prior to 2013, MSM in Canada were not allowed to donate blood if they had any sexual contact with another male since 1977. Females were barred from donating if, in the last year, they had sexual contact with a man who had sex with another man after 1977.
On July 22, 2013, Canada changed this policy so that MSM can donate blood if they have abstained from sexual contact with another man for the past 5 years. The deferral period for females is still 12 months if they have had sex with a man who has had sex with another man in the last 5 years, but there is no deferral if the man had sex with another man more than 5 years before.
To evaluate the impact of this policy change, Dr O’Brien and her colleagues assessed compliance with the MSM criteria before and after the change, as well as the number of HIV-positive blood donations before and after the change.
The researchers also assessed the number of donors who would have been deferred according to the old MSM criteria but donated blood under the new criteria.
MSM history
The researchers selected random male donors of whole blood each month from October 2012 to February 2013 (pre-change) and from October 2014 to February 2015 (post-change). These donors were invited to complete an anonymous online survey about their MSM history.
The survey was completed by 9669 donors before the policy change and 6881 donors after the change. There were 77 donors with MSM history before the change (20% first-time donors, 80% repeat) and 75 donors with MSM history after the change (22% first-time, 78% repeat).
Compliance with policy
After the change in policy for MSM blood donors, there was no significant change in the proportion of donors who had recent MSM history but donated anyway (non-compliant). Before the change, 0.37% of blood donors had an MSM partner in the last 5 years, compared to 0.43% after the change (P=0.54).
However, there was a significant change in the proportion of blood donors with MSM history further in the past. Before the MSM policy change, 0.42% of donors had an MSM partner but not in the last 5 years, compared to 0.66% of donors after the change (P=0.04).
“So we have an improvement in compliance, but it’s mainly because the donors are no longer deferrable,” Dr O’Brien explained.
“Donating while ineligible because of MSM history is actually quite rare, and the percentage of donors with MSM history in the last 5 years did not change when we changed the criteria. But we did see a modest increase in newly eligible MSM, so those that had more than 5 years since their last male-to-male sex.”
In all, there were 112 donors who were newly eligible due to the policy change and did, in fact, donate blood between July 22, 2013 and July 21, 2015. Five of these donors were females who had sexual contact with MSMs.
