Australian Red Cross Lifeblood Plans to Expand Donor Eligibility in 2024

The Australian Red Cross Lifeblood plans to submit a proposal to the country’s health regulator this year to introduce individual donor assessment (IDA) to determine blood donor eligibility, CEO Stephen Cornelissen, MHA, said in a recent news release.

In 2023, Lifeblood convened a research advisory group to examine how IDA for blood donation could work in Australia. The group’s findings are helping to shape a submission that Lifeblood will submit to Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration. If approved, the submission would introduce a gender-neutral approach to determine blood donor eligibility and allow more gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (MSM) to donate blood without a deferral period.

The planned IDA submission complements Lifeblood’s “plasma pathway,” a major expansion in plasma donor eligibility approved by the TGA in May. Under the “plasma pathway,” Lifeblood will remove all questions about sexual activity from the plasma donor questionnaire, allowing anyone to donate plasma for fractionation, which undergoes pathogen inactivation, if they meet all other eligibility criteria. Notably, Australia will become the first country to expand plasma donor eligibility to include donors taking pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to prevent HIV infection and donors having anal sex with new or multiple partners.

TGA approved the “plasma pathway” based on evidence provided in Lifeblood’s submission and a scientific, epidemiological and clinical assessment conducted by the agency, which determined that “recipient safety remains within accepted risk tolerance parameters and ensures the ongoing safety of the Australian blood supply.”

Lifeblood is currently working with stakeholders on a timeline to start these plasma collections in 2024.