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The following is issued on behalf of the Hospital Authority:
The spokesperson of the Hong Kong Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service (BTS) today (August 27) announced that, with immediate effect, anyone who has resided in or visited any of the countries which have had an outbreak of Ebola virus disease (including Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria) will be deferred for blood donation for at least 28 days from the date he or she departed from the affected country. Ebola virus disease has an incubation period of two to 21 days. The BTS will closely follow the latest information on the virus outbreak as announced by the World Health Organization in order to revise the blood donation screening policies.
The spokesperson pointed out that the screening decision has been made as a precautionary measure by the Hospital Authority (BTS) Expert Panel on Blood and Blood Products Safety and has been endorsed by the Blood Transfusion Service Governing Committee. In fact, donors are currently temporarily deferred for blood donation if they have travelled to Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria in the past 12 months for prevention of malaria.
The spokesman said, "The current donor screening policy includes enquiring about the travel history of prospective donors in the past 12 months. If a person has visited a malaria high-risk region in the past 12 months, or visited the West Nile Virus prevalent regions in North America in the past 28 days, blood donation deferral will apply." The spokesperson stressed that the objective of the deferral policy is to ensure blood safety, while blood supply would not be affected.
Ends/Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Issued at HKT 15:15
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