Impact of Individual Donor Assessment Deferral Changes on Donor HIV, HBV, HCV, and Syphilis Prevalence

In 2023, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines for blood donations shifted from a 3-month deferral for donors who have sex with MSM (men who have sex with men) to individual donor assessment (IDA). During the recent 2025 AABB Annual Meeting, researchers presented an abstract in which they compared HIV, HBV, HCV, and syphilis prevalence rates in two 18-month periods pre- and post-IDA. During the two study periods, 21.7 million donations (half from each period, 52% male, 86% repeat donors, 90% > 25 years of age, and 83% White) from American Red Cross, New York Blood Center, Vitalant, and OneBlood were assessed for prevalence of HIV, HBV, HCV and syphilis. Prevalence per 100,000 donations remained stable for HBV pre- and post-IDA implementation and decreased from 10.2 to 9.0 for HCV. Mirroring prevalence rates in the general population, prevalence of syphilis increased from 34.5 (95%. C.I., 33.4-35.6) to 44.4 (95% C.I., 43.1-45.6) (p=0.01) per 100,000 donations. In addition, prevalence of HIV positive donations increased from 2.2 (95% C.I., 1.9-2.5) to 2.7 (95% C.I., 2.5 to 3.1) post-IDA implementation (p=0.02). Specifically, HIV prevalence increased among subsets of donors including the largest donor group (ages 25-54 years) and those identifying as Hispanic and Latino. Continued monitoring of transfusion-transmitted infections is needed.

Reference:

Huseynova E, Notari E, Conti G, Custer B, et al. Transfusion-Transmissible Infection Prevalence in US Blood Donations: Comparison of 3-month Deferrals to Individual Donor Assessment. AABB Annual Meeting 2025, San Diego. Abstract PL3-SN-08.