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Male Blood Donors to Be Quizzed About Sexual Behaviour Now

Male Blood Donors to Be Quizzed About Sexual Behaviour Now

New Delhi: Male blood donors in the country now have to face a newer and more comprehensive version of the donor screening questionnaire.

A report in the Times of India has said that blood banks in Mumbai have recently received the updated format with  new donor requirements from the National Blood Transfusion Council’s state chapter. In 2017, the Council had revisited its donor selection guidelines, which restated that due to their higher risk of contracting HIV, Hepatitis A and B, gay and bisexual men, transpersons and female sex workers could not donate blood. The questionnaires will now have questions for male donors regarding their sexual behaviour and whether they have multiple partners.

As early as 2009, many private hospitals were apprehensive about homosexual male donors and some had even banned them. Last year, reply to an RTI inquiry filed by activist Chetan Kothari with National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) stated that individuals from the LGBTQIA+ community cannot donate blood because the community is considered “high-risk”.

The new questionnaire reportedly directs blood banks to ask if a male donor has “multiple sex partners or is engaged in male to male sexual activity.”

Dr Shobini Rajan, in charge of blood safety at NACO, told Times of India that the purpose of the revised questionnaire was to strengthen pre-donation screening as blood units are subjected to tests only after collection: “The Act is clear that donors cannot be at a high risk of contracting infections and donate blood too.”

However, Ashok Row Kavi of the Humsafar Trust added, “Are gay men simply supposed to give away such intimate details? While such questions are necessary for screening, they also have to create an environment where a person feels comfortable to share.”

On September 7, the Supreme Court struck down Section 377 of the IPC which criminalised ‘unnatural sex’ between consenting adults, and was effectively used to criminalise homosexual relations in India for more than a century. However, as many activists have underlined that the more challenging task in the country is for the LGBTQIA+ community to seek social acceptance.

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