HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and blood donation

What is it about?

While HIV PrEP is a powerful tool to reduce the risk of acquiring HIV there are some potential concerns for those collecting and testing blood donations.

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Why is it important?

PrEP is very effective at preventing HIV acquisition when used correctly but it is not 100% effective. In the rare cases where it fails (PrEP breakthrough infection) it has the potential to compromise HIV donation testing. So it is imperative that those interpreting HIV donation tests consider this possibility, particularly where the screening questions don't include a specific question asking about PrEP use by presenting blood donors. Ultimately the risk is considered to be low because cases of PrEP breakthrough are currently very rare and donors using PrEP should be excluded by other high risk sexual contact questions.