Blood donation amongst people who inject drugs in Australia: research supporting policy change

Abstract

Background and objectives: Until recently, people in Australia with a history of injection drug use (IDU) were deferred indefinitely from donating blood. Knowledge gaps regarding policy non-compliance and the prevalence of blood donation practices amongst people who inject drugs (PWID) precluded changes to this policy. We sought to address these gaps and to estimate the additional risk to Australia’s blood supply associated with changing the indefinite deferral policy to 1 or 5 years since last injecting episode. Materials and methods: Data on blood donation amongst PWID were collected from 1853 interviews across two Australian studies of PWID conducted during 2015/16. Mathematical modelling..