Gay men should not be excluded from donating blood on the basis of their identity or HIV status, the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) said on Friday, ”but rather on the basis of epidemiological data or research, which according to the SAHRC does not convincingly exist in South Africa”, according to commissioner Leon Wessels.
This was the stance taken by the SAHRC at its 51st plenary session on Thursday, he said.
The commission had in the past suggested that the South African National Blood Service (SANBS), the Medical Research Council and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research probe the applicability in South Africa of international findings that homosexuals were a high-risk group.
However, the SANBS had opposed the study and negotiations had broken down.
”We also unsuccessfully approached the Department of Health to try and persuade the SANBS to undertake this study.”
Wessels said the prohibition of blood donations by sexually active men can only be permissible and justified if the epidemiological data points to a high HIV/Aids prevalence among this population.
”Everybody practising unsafe, high-risk sex should be excluded from donating blood and a special emphasis should not be placed on the sexual activities of gay men.”
Wessels said the commission noted that the SANBS had agreed to a Department of Health request to discuss the reviewing of its self-exclusionary questionnaire.
”If there is however, once again, no progress in these discussions, an appropriate equality court should be asked to give a declaratory order on this matter.”
Should the matter go to that court, the onus would rest on the SANBS to prove that its discrimination was not unfair.
Blood protest
The discredited Gay and Lesbian Alliance’s alleged mass defiance of a ban on blood from gay male donors could still not be confirmed by the SANBS this week.
”They have gone through everything [donor records] and they cannot find it,” spokesperson Ianthe Exall said on Tuesday of the claims of en masse donations by gay and HIV-positive men.
”We have checked the actual names of people who claim to have donated and have not seen an increase in our clinics — there has been nothing different.”
There had also not been a noticeable increase in first-time donors, which could have supported claims of a campaign.
”If they did donate and lied on the forms, they were more than likely first-time donors,” Exall said.
On Friday, the SANBS had received a copy of a media statement bearing the letterhead of the GLA — once a registered political party — claiming that eight of its board members had donated blood while not disclosing their gay lifestyle.
A deluge of statements from gay community organisations and spokespersons slammed the GLA as a fake organisation with only one member, and not the 157 000 it claims. — Sapa