Blood Donation or Transfusion and Lyme Disease or the Lyme Disease Vaccine

Lyme disease is a serious bacterial infection caused by a tick bite and affects humans and animals.

[Lyme disease: "defer indefinitely"]
American Red Cross -- Learn About Blood Donation -- Eligibility Guidelines

[Lyme disease: donate if "undergone a full course of antibiotic treatment and no longer have any symptoms"]
American Association of Blood Banks (AABB), All About Blood, Sep 99

[Lyme disease: "defer indefinitely"]
The American National Red Cross: Who may give blood, 1999

[Lyme disease "would permanently disqualify an individual as a... blood donor"]
UCSF Blood Centers, Donation Guidelines

[Lyme disease: "six months after date of last signs or symptoms/48 hours after treatment and no signs or symptoms"]
nybloodcenter.org

[Lyme disease: "six months after symptoms are over"]
New York Medodist Hospital, Giving Blood

["defer indefinitely" those having Lyme disease]
NIH: Who May Recycle Life? Carolinas Red Cross

[blood recalled from patient with Babesiosis and Lyme Disease]
FDA: Enforcement Report for October 13, 1999

["Lyme disease...may be asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic;...making transmission by transfusion a possibility."]
CDC: Blood Safety, EID, 1998

["transfusion-transmission has been documented in... no cases of Lyme disease.]
CDC: Workshop explores risk for transfusion-related spread of tickborne illnesses, Focus, Jan - Mar 99

[Lyme disease "transmissible through blood"]
GAO: Blood Supply: FDA Oversight and Remaining Issues of Safety, 25 Feb 97

["Lyme Disease: Asymptomatic Lyme disease is acceptable if the donor has been treated successfully with antibiotics. Chronic Lyme disease is unacceptable."]
HRSA: Health History Guidelines for marrow donation, 27 Jul 01

Responsible Blood Donation - Transfusions, Lyme Disease and Babesiosis - by Donna Herrell

["may be possible to transmit Borrelia burgdorferi in a blood transfusion"]
Evidence of Borrelia burgdorferi in a Blood Donor, ICEID Online Presentations, July 2000, Byll's-Eye, vol. 10.4, Aug 01

["there is no testing for... Borrelia (Lyme disease)."]
Providing a safe and cost-effective blood transfusion service, Hospital Pharmacist, May 00

["rarely transmitted by blood products, but for which no routine cost-effective laboratory testing is available include: Lyme disease."]
Univ. of Utah: Blood Testing - a Mini-Toutorial

["Donors with a history of Lyme disease can not donate Blood unless they no longer have symptoms whatever, have undergone a full course of antibiotic treatment, and are cleared by a physician."]
Blood Transfusion Transmitted Diseases - BloodBook, Blood Information for Life

NIH: Infectious Disease Testing for Blood Transfusions (CBM 94-10), 1994

["Lyme Disease vaccine: more than 12 months ago"]
Univ. of Vermont: Donor Eligibility, 16 Oct 98

["No wait after Lyme disease vaccination"]
Sisterhood through Service: Service Projects

For more information on Lyme disease see: Lots Of Links On Lyme Disease

Comments or questions concerning this page should be directed to Art Doherty.

Last updated on 1 August 2001 by
Art Doherty
Lompoc, California
doherty@utech.net