The Australian Red Cross is pushing to remove sexual history questions from its plasma donor screening, a move that would allow sexually active gay and bisexual men to donate for the first time in decades.
Red Cross Lifeblood, which manages the nation's supply of life-saving blood products, is taking the first steps needed for regulatory approval to remove the three-month ban in place for anyone at risk of exposure to a new HIV infection.
That stops anyone engaging in male-to-male sexual activity and those who have had sex with a person from a country with higher rates of HIV from donating.
Lifeblood chief medical officer Joanne Pink said, if it proved feasible and met regulators' standards, removing this restriction would put the Australian system among the most safe and progressive in the world.
"We're excited about this because it could potentially mean that anyone impacted by this rule could donate plasma without any wait time at all. It may be possible to remove all the questions about sexual activity in the plasma donor questionnaire," she said.
"The plasma pathway potentially gives the greatest number of people across our population the opportunity to donate blood, and we would be the first in the world to do this."
Dr Pink said the "best available evidence" indicated there was next to no risk of HIV being transmitted and they would prioritise safety if their submission was put through approval processes, including with the Therapeutic Goods Adminstration.
"Plasma donations undergo additional processing steps which further reduce the risk of an infection being passed on to a patient, in addition to processes such as blood donation testing for HIV," she said.
Lifeblood will attempt to go through a process to ensure that everything "is safe and feasible".
"The safety and wellbeing of patients who receive blood and blood products must be foremost in all our decision-making," Dr Pink said.
"Lifeblood is committed to looking at changes whenever new research or evidence becomes available."
HIV positive activist and co-founder of The Institute of Many Nic Holas welcomed the potential for restrictions to be eased in partnership with the effort to stop the spread of HIV.
"I think it's really fantastic to see that Lifeblood is making these changes, it kind of fixes a really tricky, complex problem that allows certain people from the community to still be able to show up and donate and do their part," he said.
Mr Holas said while some people had advocated to remove restrictions around whole blood, "that is a little bit premature at the moment".
"We're seeing a lot less younger people contracting HIV now, we're seeing a lot less Australian born gay and bisexual men getting HIV now but it's going up in international students and migrants and it's going up in the heterosexual community and it's going up in Indigenous communities," he said.
"We've got a lot of work to do to make sure other communities don't get left behind."
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