Germany’s health minister announced Tuesday, AFP and The Local reported, Agerpres reported, that Germany would lift strict restrictions on blood donations by homosexuals that date back to the start of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.

Blood TransfusionPhoto: Life in View / Sciencephoto / Profimedia Images

“Whether someone can become a blood donor or not is a question of risky behavior, not sexual orientation,” Minister Karl Lauterbach told the RND press group.

“There should be no hidden discrimination in this matter,” argued the Minister of Health in Olaf Scholz’s government.

The amendment to the law on blood transfusions, which the minister will present, provides that from now on “sexual orientation and gender identity should not be exclusion criteria”, German media reports.

The amendment to the law has been announced for April 1, but the medical board will have another four months to develop a new non-discriminatory directive.

Restrictions on gay blood donation, which date back to the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, were motivated at the time by fears that the risk of transmission of the virus through blood donation was extremely high among gay men.

Germany is following the example of other countries in gay blood donation

According to the current directive of the German Medical College, homosexuals can only donate blood if they have not had sexual relations with “a new partner or more than one sexual partner” within the last four months.

The directive has already undergone minor changes in 2021: before that date, the stipulated period was 12 months.

The abolition of these restrictions, which have been condemned by anti-discrimination associations for many years, is included in the contract of the “lighthouse” coalition between the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Liberals, which has been in power since the end of 2021.

“Abolition of discrimination is long overdue and I am glad that Minister Karl Lauterbach has addressed this issue now,” LGBT Minister Plenipotentiary Sven Lehmann told the Funke press group.

Before Germany, many countries, such as France, Spain, Italy, Israel, as well as England, have already changed their conditions of access to donation in this sense.