Short term travellers who visit Malaria-risk areas such as Mexico, now have a shorter waiting period before being eligible to donate blood.

Mike Choi is Territory Manager for Canadian Blood Services. He says it used to be that someone who visited one of these areas on their travels, needed to wait an entire year before giving a donation of blood. But, on August 30th, Health Canada approved an application by Canadian Blood Services to reduce the waiting period to three months.

"We know that Malaria is very rare in travellers returning from short term trips to Malaria-risk areas," explains Choi. "This is because the risk of exposure is lower for short term travellers."

Further to that, he says most travellers from Canada are visiting relatively low-risk areas. He notes they tend to travel to Mexican resorts and not Sub-Saharan Africa.

"In Canada and US studies, most cases of Malaria are actually found within folks who come from parts of the world where Malaria is endemic, particularly Africa," explains Choi. "There are extremely few cases found in travellers, again who have visited Malaria-risk areas for short periods of time."

One thing that does not change is that those who spend more than six consecutive months in a Malaria-risk area must still wait three years before donating blood. And, those who have had Malaria in the past, are still not eligible to give blood.

When asked whether this change will have much of an impact on blood donations in Manitoba, Choi's response was, "absolutely." In fact, he says Malaria-risk due to travel is the second most common reason for people being unable to donate. Nationally last year, up to 2,000 donors every month were ineligible to donate blood due to travel to a Malaria-risk area.

"We're trying to be as inclusive as possible about who can donate while still fulfilling our commitment to protect the blood supply," he says.

With this change only a month old, Choi says it is still too early to know the impact it has had, especially considering many Canadians did not enjoy a winter getaway earlier this year due to COVID-19.

"But we do anticipate in the long term that we're going to see significantly more donations because of it," says Choi. "Especially in a province like Manitoba where we have so many folks going to warmer climates in the winter."

Meanwhile, Choi says one unfortunate trend that has been noticed during this pandemic is the increased number of appointment cancellations and no shows. He notes Steinbach is not immune to this problem.

"Going into our blood donor clinics in Steinbach we're seeing great bookings," he says. "Yet the day of actual donation event, we're seeing folks who are not following up on that appointment we made and those appointments certainly can go to other folks who are looking to donate blood."

For those who cannot make their appointment, he asks them to please be sure to cancel. Choi says it is understandable that in our current environment, especially with school recently starting up, that people have a lot on their mind and can quickly forget about their appointment.

"We're just asking folks to remember the time in which you would have come in," says Choi. "Someone else can come in your place to help make that life-saving donation."

To make an appointment, visit blood.ca or call 1-888-2donate.