sanbs not certain on gay blood

By Nthateng Mhlambiso

SOUTH AFRICA – July 17, 2006: Even though the South African National Blood Service (SANBS) has banned men having sex with other men (MSM) from donating blood, the sector cannot be certain if ‘straight’ men donating blood don’t practice such demeanour.

The blood institute only relies on the questionnaire people fill asking whether they’re gay or not, which is very tentative to reflect the truth, and eventually makes a decision that gay people are the ones with high HIV infection rate.

Asked about the questionnaire’s reliability, SANBS spokesperson Nicolette Duda said; “All blood is donated by voluntary donors. In a totally voluntary system there is no incentive for people to be untruthful when answering the pre-donation questions, which are designed to protect the health of both the donor and the patient.”

She continued; “If you donate blood and you know you're putting a patient's life at risk, just ask yourself the question, would you like to receive the blood you are about to donate? Secondly, we have nucleic acid amplification (ID NAT) test in place, which tests every unit of blood individually for HIV, hepatitis B and C. Unfortunately, no test system available can detect when the donation is in the window period of infection. The donor questionnaire therefore remains an essential component of the SANBS risk management system.”

On the other hand, gay and lesbian organisations in South Africa are still against the exclusion of gay men from donating blood.

“Our stand is that SANBS cannot just exclude a certain group of people as high risk of HIV without evidence. Their decision to ban males having sex with other males from donating blood is based on a data from outside the country. We need to conduct more research locally because different countries have different HIV epidemics,” said Fikile Vilakazi of OUT –LGBT Wellbeing.

Vilakazi says, “On a meeting that we had with SANBS earlier this year it was agreed that we should consult with epidemiologists and look at different epidemics of HIV in Africa. This process is still underway.”

When asking if there’s any local investigation done to interrogate the decision informed by the international research data that bans gay blood donors, SANBS admitted that in fact it doesn’t have such study, and that should be something done by an external independent research unit.

Speaking for the National Department of Health, Sibani Mngadi says it is the Health Department’s responsibility to make as many people who want to donate blood to have that opportunity.

“However we have an obligation to make sure that the blood donated is safe.  In a meeting that we had with the SANBS we reached an agreement that there should be a consultation between researchers, scientists and groups that represent gays and lesbians to see whether we can review the questionnaire that excludes this group”, Mngadi explained.

Mngadi pointed out that solving the problem of exclusion would not necessarily solve the problem of blood donation, and said “That is why we suggested that SANBS engages in campaigns that will attract mostly young people in schools who can still be taught about sexual behavior.”

Asked whether the issue is about anal sex and whether couples in heterosexual relationships who also engage in anal sex are not a risk, Mngadi said, “That is why we must emphasize on whether a person has been exposed to infection than on whether they have had anal sex which is said to be of higher risk.”

Even so, SANBS is not planning to change its policy regarding gay people anytime soon. “We are looking at changing the time period of deferral, but questions relating to high risk behavior such as intravenous drug use, changing sex partners, prostitution and men who have sex with men will remain on the questionnaire.” Duda concluded.