‘Tiny risk’ of vCJD sees ban lift on UK blood donors
British people have been prevented from giving blood in Australia for more than 20 years
From Monday, eligible people who were in the UK in the 80s and 90s will be able to donate blood in Australia again.
That’s because the risk of acquiring variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) from blood transfusions in Australia is incredibly tiny.
We calculated that risk was about one in 1.4 billion, publishing our research in the journal Vox Sanguinis.
The removal of restrictions, which have been in place for more than 20 years, means about 750,000 more Australians can now potentially donate blood.
