Australia Makes Giving Blood Plasma More Inclusive
Giving blood plasma donations can save countless lives. Plasma, the liquid part of your blood, allows your blood cells to flow to every part of your body. It is one of the most essential substances in your body.
Giving a donation of plasma, according to the Australian Red Cross Lifeblood, allows you to help more people, more often. That’s because you can donate plasma every two weeks and your gift is used in 18 different processes. Now, Australia has changed its regulations to allow gay men to donate blood plasma and that could save countless lives.
Changing Regulations
The rules that banned all sexually active (and for a time all) gay men were originally enacted to decrease the risk of transmitting HIV through blood donations, reported the BBC. Later, restrictions were changed to a ban on any man or transgender woman who have had sexual activity in the previous three months. But this is changing Down Under.
“Blood safety is and always will be our top priority, but we know the current donation rules have been very difficult for many people in the LGBTQIA+ community… we know that they’ve [the donation restrictions] contributed to the stigma faced by [them],” Lifeblood chief medical officer Jo Pink said in a statement to the BBC.
On July 14, 2025 Australia is loosening the restrictions on donating plasma relating to people’s sexual activity, according to a press release from Lifeblood. This effectively allows gay and bisexual men as well as anyone taking PrEP – an HIV prevention antiviral – to donate without the customary wait period. This is a world’s first.
Other countries including the UK, Canada, and the US are using a gender-neutral individual risk assessment but that would still leave many people ineligible to donate. In the US, it is estimated that three quarters of gay men remain unable to give blood even after the loosening of restrictions.
How Will This Save Lives?
The global demand for blood plasma is so high that the loosening of the rules will have a huge impact, reports BBC. Since plasma goes through a process called pathogen inactivation which filters out bacteria and viruses, the rules change will not affect the safety of the blood.
Pink told BBC that the changes to plasma donations will allow more than 600,000 extra people to give blood. “We now anticipate an extra 24,000 donors and 95,000 extra donations of plasma to be made each year,” she said.
Besides the changes to blood plasma donations, Lifeblood is currently working on making similar changes to whole blood and platelet donation eligibility. Making blood donations more inclusive could save lives around the world.
