This week there was an article in Malaria World Newsletter of interest to those of us who do not live in countries in which malaria is supposedly endemic. The subject is blood donations. I am an active donor. I give blood because it supposedly reduces blood pressure. It is easy to see how this would be a short-term effect but would the effect last? But whether this is true or not, the blood may be of use to an accident victim, and my blood is uncontaminated with experimental medications.
But for 12 months after returning from Africa the Irish Blood Transfusion Service did not want my donations. I visited Gaborone in Botswana which is not on the malaria map. But because I changed planes in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia my blood was not wanted. I didn’t see a single mosquito at the airport, but the fact that I was transported to and from my planes by bus disallowed me as a donor for 12 months.
I doubt the mosquito-plasmodium link to malaria and do not see the benefit of this blood donation ban imposed by western countries. But the recent paper published in BMC based on data from Spain by Corbacho‑Loarte et al comes to the conclusion that blood donations are being restricted by the current rules and tests, even if one believes in the role of mosquitos and plasmodia.
In this study the blood of 121 potential donors, both immigrants and Spanish travellers from malaria endemic countries, who had positive results in immunological tests were retested using sensitive PCR assays. The PCR tests detect genes coding for ssrRNA, AMA1 or Plasmepsin of P. falciparum, P. malariae, P. ovale, P. vivax and P. knowlesi. All 121 tested negative for the Plasmodia.
Nevertheless, because of the positive immunological tests all 121 are still not eligible blood donors. One wonders what the objective of these restrictions are.