New Zealanders' blood donations help 29,000 people each year (or 76 jumbo jets full of people)
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Changes to the behavioural donor eligibility criteria
In 2013, NZBS invited an external expert review group to undertake an independent review, with the principal task to review the ongoing appropriateness of exclusion of potential donors on the basis of current or past sexual behaviours, to ensure the ongoing safety of blood and blood products provided in New Zealand.
(This follows a review conducted in 2008 where NZBS accepted the recommendations of the independent review group at that time in full, and introduced new criteria in March 2009.)
The NZBS Board reviewed the report and accepted all of the recommendations. NZBS is confident that the recommendations are based on good clinical evidence and that the changes will have no impact on the safety of blood and blood products provided to New Zealanders.
Approval from Medsafe was obtained in September. NZBS has made the necessary changes to systems and documentation, and the changes were implemented on 15th December 2014.
More information can be found here.
The final report from the review group can be found below.
Behavioural Donor Deferral Criteria review - Final Report (pdf, 888 KB)
You may need to download Adobe Reader to view the PDF files. It is available free from the Adobe site(external link).
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