Content
Media Release
Description: Blood Donor Travel Survey to Begin in February |
Type: Ministerial Media Release |
Blood Donor Travel Survey to Begin in February
Australia's watchdog expert committee on transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), including bovine spongiform encephalopathy, has endorsed a plan by the Australian Red Cross Blood Service (ARCBS) to survey 16,000 blood donors to ascertain their travel histories.
The National Health and Medical Research Council's Special Expert Committee on TSEs (SECTSE) met last week and its Chair, Professor Graeme Ryan, said the survey followed a decision made by Australian health authorities in December 2000 to preclude people who had lived in the UK for a cumulative period of six months or more between 1980-1996, from giving blood.
"This was a precautionary measure to protect against the remote and unproven theoretical risk of transmission through blood of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) - the human equivalent of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), so called 'mad cow disease'. Australian governments have continued to closely monitor the situation overseas and my committee has supported the proposal by the ARCBS to conduct a donor travel survey," Professor Ryan said.
"Later this year the USA and Canada propose to extend their donor deferral measures to include donors who have travelled for extended periods to other countries where BSE has now been identified in cattle.
"The ARCBS has already undertaken a pilot survey late last year which has helped it refine its larger survey, due to begin in early February and to report in June."
Professor Ryan said his committee was very conscious of the implications of further deferral of blood donors for the supply of blood in Australia for life saving medical procedures.
"It may be that the results of the survey show that there would be a severe impact on the amount of blood available in Australia if more donors were excluded from giving blood," he said.
"The remote and unproven risk of transmission of vCJD by transfusion must be balanced with the real risk of significant harm to patients if there are too few donors and insufficient blood and blood products.
"My committee believes, therefore, that such a survey is urgently needed to provide much needed evidence to assist health authorities in making the best judgements and decisions for the Australian public."