Race-based blood policy may be safer in preventing HIV

Dominique Herman:

The South African National Blood Service's former race-based risk management policy - which barred many blacks from donating blood between 1999 and 2005 - led to a substantial drop in HIV-infected blood supplies.

"Hundreds or more would have received infections from blood transfusions without the race-based policy," said Michael Busch, senior author of the Blood Systems Research Institute in San Francisco in the United States.

Busch collaborated with SANBS chief executive Anthon Heyns and others on the study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

However, Busch said the study was not an argument in favour of the policy. Rather, it underscored "the dilemma of trying to maintain a safe blood supply in the challenging arena of epidemic infectious disease and social expectations".

The research looked at about 900 000 blood donations collected in the inland region from the policy's first year, and compared these with almost 800 000 donations collected from 2001 to 2002, when the policy was in full swing.

HIV was detected in 0,17 percent of donations in 1999-2000, but dropped 50 percent to 0,08 percent in 2001-2002 after the implementation of the enhanced-donor selection and education policy. The number of high-risk donations collected decreased from 2,6 percent to 1,7 percent.

Evidence suggested that 24 HIV-infected units of blood entered South Africa's blood supply in 1999. The prevalence of HIV in blood donations increased to 0,26 percent in 1998.

"Black individuals, who comprise 79 percent of the population, contributed only 4,2 percent of the blood supply in 2001-2002, down from 10 percent in 1999," the authors said.

South African Blood Policy Using Race as Risk Factor for HIV Reduced Levels of Tainted Blood, Study Says

South African race-based blood policy may have cut HIV transmissions