Restrictions prohibiting homosexual men from donating blood have been removed, deputy prime minister and health minister Chris Fearne said Friday.

“The discrimination employed – for patient safety – will no longer stand on blood donations, a pledge we made to electors in 2022,” Fearne said.

The announcement comes three years since the ban was lifted in September 2019, after the National Blood Transfusion Service acquired advanced testing equipment.

"We now have equipment that is very sensitive and analyses blood very thoroughly. For this reason, from today, gay men will be allowed to donate blood and therefore there will no longer be any discrimination based on sexual orientation when it comes to blood donation,” Fearne said.  

Equality parliamentary secretary Rebecca Buttigieg said the Labour administration was committed to a more equal society. “This new blood donation protocol is a step forward for us. Gay men will no longer find closed doors when they make this generous step to donate blood.”

Previously a deferral policy was used to reduce the risk of transmitting the HIV virus, which causes AIDS, when LGBTIQ people requested to donate blood. 

Blood donation policies banning gay men were heavily influenced by the AIDS scourge of the 1980s. Sex between men was considered to be high risk by the health authorities and blood donation policies have taken time to evolve even as science has provided better blood testing techniques.

Gay rights activists argued that the ban on homosexual men was discriminatory and rather than targeting sexual orientation, health authorities should focus on risky behaviour, irrespective of who the potential donor is.

In 2016, the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that governments were allowed to ban – or restrict – homosexual blood donors if they could prove it was the best way to limit the risk of HIV infection.