There has been a greater-than-expected increase in blood donations following the lifting of a ban on donors from the UK considered to be at risk of variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (vCJD), Australian Red Cross Lifeblood data have revealed.
Since December 2000, people who had spent at least six months in the UK between 1980 and 1996 were prevented from donating blood to mitigate a potential blood safety risk, until the TGA lifted the ban last year.
The rule change was based on epidemiological modelling predicting a negligible risk of vCJD transmission, with a gain of 58,000 donations. In reality there has been an increase of almost 68,000 donations so far.
Researchers were able to conduct their analysis because the donor questionnaire retained the UK deferral screening question until it was updated on 12 February this year, allowing UK donors to be identified for six months post rule change.
Donations from this cohort were compared with baseline donation metrics.
Findings published in a short report in Vox Sanguinis [link here] showed a total of 38,462 UK donors attended to donate 78,762 times over the six-month study time period. Of these, 32,358 donors (females 60%) successfully donated 67,914 times, representing 8.4% of total collections.
Attendances peaked at 14.4% of the total in the first week before stabilising.
Of the donations, 27,537 were plasma and 40,101 were transfusable component.
The researchers said had these newly eligible donors not donated, total donations would have been 88% of total target in the second half of 2022, rather than the 96% achieved, due to factors including impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Based on the donation frequency to date of 2.1 donations in six months versus 2.9 per annum for all panel donors, the cohort of UK donors appears highly committed,” said the team, which included doctors and blood safety analysts from Lifeblood, Melbourne, and statisticians from the Kirby Institute at UNSW, Sydney.
“The initial high uptake likely reflected several factors, including pre-implementation marketing activity centred on direct invitation to 7000 existing ‘deferred’ donors, targeted media, promotional activity and possibly a higher level of motivation in donors deferred for over 20 years.
“The media response was unprecedented with over 2000 media stories in the first two days of the campaign alone.”
They said other reasons for the underestimation of the predicted number of newly eligible donors might have been due to an underestimation of the people affected by the ban, particularly travellers who might have been missed in the data.
The researchers concluded that following Australia’s donation boost, other countries should also consider the risk–benefit of removing a vCJD UK deferral.