stylin19a wrote:
“I couldn’t donate blood here because I had been in SE Asia.”
Is that the case for anyone who has been to that area of the world?
What is it about that area that affects folks’ blood?
For Americans, it's the vaxxes, plague, yellow fever. Then there is the malarial prophylaxis or malaria. TB/typhoid etc etc.
see list ... https://www.redcrossblood.org/faq.html#eligibility
** Is that the case for anyone who has been to that area of the world? **
not sure about today. I stopped trying to volunteer after a few years.
Maybe it was the shots I was given going to and coming back from Vietnam.
Maybe it was too risky that I might have brought something back?
Maybe testing wasn’t so hot back then.
Maybe Clinton’s tainted Arkansas prisoner blood donations to Canada spooked everybody and we became overcautious?
I finally was able to donate blood sometime between 2006-2015.(I forget zactly when)
then they were calling\emailing too much to get me to be a regular donor.
For a while “they” were trying to mainstream or loosen restrictions for aids\hiv blood donor donations.
Not sure how far they got with that.