

More Information here regarding Covid-19 measures in place. Covid-19 Vaccine/Booster: You must wait 48 hours before donating after any HPRA approved vaccination/booster, once you feel well and are asymptomatic.Close Contacts: You can donate if you are a Covid Contact once you are well and asymptomatic.Please call our donor helpline if you were seriously ill or hospitalized. Blood transfusion centers, the Red Cross Society, and blood donation.

You can now attend even if you have a mild residual cough. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in South-East Botswana amongst.

"Our decades-long mission of providing lifesaving support for our warfighters carries on today," said Riggs. Seventy-two years ago, the ASBP was established under President Harry Truman and became a fully operational blood program by 1962. As a joint operation within the Defense Health Agency, the ASBP collects, processes, stores, transports, and distributes blood products to service members, their families, retirees, and veterans worldwide. military, the ASBP's mission is to provide quality blood products and support to military health care operations worldwide, according to Riggs. Since 1952, the ASBP has been tasked with ensuring the safety of the military's blood supply.Īs the official blood program of the U.S. What is the Armed Services Blood Program? "A decision to donate your blood can save a life, or even several if your blood is separated into its components-red cells, platelets and plasma- which can be used individually for patients with specific conditions." "Blood is the most precious gift that anyone can give to another person-the gift of life," he said. Riggs added that everyone should consider donating blood, if they are eligible. Blood safety is always our top priority." Riggs said that "standard procedures are in place to assure that donors are healthy at the time of donation and serve as an effective safeguard against collecting blood or blood components from a donor after the onset of clinical symptoms of vCJD. Leslie Riggs, division chief of the ASBP.Īccording to the FDA, most individuals who were once deferred should now be eligible to donate blood, assuming they meet all other donor requirements. Now, with lifting of the ban, the Armed Services Blood Program wants to see an increase in donors with "thousands of military members and their families who had been excluded from being able to donate blood because of geographical travel or military assignment now being eligible to donate," said U.S. In 2020, the FDA lifted the vCJD disease travel deferral for the majority of affected European countries, but it wasn't until May 2022 that it was determined to be safe enough to lift the ban for the U.K., France, and Ireland. Since the 1980s, the existence of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, referenced as vCJD and otherwise known as the "Mad Cow" disease, banned many potential donors from donating blood-in particular, those who have served in or traveled to certain countries in Europe. Armed Services Blood Program | Can I Donate | Be A DonorĪ decades-old blood donor ban was recently lifted by the Food and Drug Administration, potentially increasing the nation's blood supply by hundreds of thousands of donors each year.
