Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - September 10, 2006
Bobby Jordan

Revised rules - already accepted by South Africa's two transfusion services, in a bid to expand the donor community - are a major shift from the previous five-year embargo imposed upon gay male donors.

The rule stems from a perceived high risk of viral infection (particularly HIV) from gay males.

The new donor rules are the result of an accurate new type of blood screening called Individual Donation Nucleic Acid Testing. The test reduces the "window period" needed to test blood from around 30 days to just five.

The so-called "NAT" testing was a major talking point at this week's 29th International Congress of the International Society of Blood Transfusion in Cape Town, attended by over 3000 of the world's blood-transfusion experts.

The new test also opens the door for other would-be donors, including men and women who have had body piercings or tattoos. Deferral periods for hepatitis exposure, recipients of blood components, stabbing victims and tattoos are likely to be shortened from a year to four months.

The new rules are intended to bolster South Africa's blood supply, which stands at around 800000 units per year. According to experts, the country needs about a million units.

Chief operations officer of the South African National Blood Service, Ravi Reddy, said the new rules had already been agreed on by the organisation's medical division.

"The standards will now be changed. New forms are being made and then comes the validation of all the changes," he said.

He said regulations governing donors were in a state of flux due to ongoing research into blood safety, an area often rocked by controversy due to the stigma of HIV/Aids infection. In the past, black and gay men were considered too high risk to donate blood. But racial profiling of donors was scrapped last year.

Gay lobby groups have severely criticised the embargo on gay donors, officially considered higher risk than heterosexual donors.

Gay men were unfairly stigmatised, the groups claimed, because figures showed HIV infection in South Africa more closely linked with heterosexual sex than male-on-male sex.

Reddy said: "In other, very developed countries that might be the other way around."

Graham Thurtell, manager of promotions planning and public relations at the Western Cape Blood Transfusion Service, said the new blood-screening tests were a major boon for the national blood supply - but were still too expensive for application countrywide in clinics and hospitals.

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