Blood donation will be open in mid-March to homosexuals without conditions, the government deciding to drop any reference in the criteria of donation to sexual orientation to end a “discrimination”, announced Tuesday the ministry for the Health. A decree will be signed to this effect during the day.
From March 16, there will be “no more reference to sexual orientation” in the questionnaires prior to blood donation, explained Jerome Salomon, Director General of Health, during a press briefing. Anyone will arrive as an individual donor. “
Donations subject to a period of sexual abstinence since 2016
Since July 2016, homosexual men have theoretically been able to donate blood, a gesture that had been prohibited for them since 1983 because of the risk of transmission of AIDS.
But this possibility remained until now subject to a period of sexual abstinence (first set at one year, before being reduced in 2019 to four months) which had to be declared during the preliminary interview.
“The extreme vigilance of the health authorities allows an evolution of the conditions of access to the donation of blood”, explained the Director General of Health, who does not expect an increase in blood donation. residual risk of HIV transmission by transfusion as a result of this measurement. “This level of risk has been falling steadily for decades,” he recalled.
A new criterion added to the questionnaire
A new criterion will be added to the questionnaire preceding the blood donation: the donor must declare whether he is taking treatment for pre- or post-exposure prophylaxis to HIV, in which case the donation will be postponed four months later.
A certain number of questions will also aim to detect possible individual risky behaviors (sexuality with several partners, under drugs, etc.), but sexual orientation will no longer be mentioned. “These are questions donors are already used to,” said Professor Salomon.
Before France, many countries, such as Spain, Italy, Israel and recently England, have already changed their conditions of access to blood donation in this direction.