Giving blood...unsure

[tombo]

I live in the UK and I gave blood for the first time a couple of years ago, and during the questions it came up that I had gone to Africa as a little boy age 5 and stayed there with my parents for just over a year while they did a teaching job in a Christian college. They said they were not supposed to take blood from people who had ever visited Africa without special checks, but after answering a few more questions they changed their minds and took my blood. (I am white + English btw).

The thing is I am still on the mailing list but I don't want to give again as they were so strange and "cagey" about me giving blood, when they agreed they were, sort of "um-ing and ah-ing" and kept shaking their heads, and I said "it is definitely ok then? you can use my blood?" and they were talking like "yeah,..I think it will be ok" and "there might be problems...but I think it will be ok" and similar.

I just got the impression they had a policy of not turning down the blood but possibly checking afterward and throwing it later if questions came up. And I don't want to go to ggive again unless I get a strait answer that they want it and it is not a waste of time, though they send me emails asking me back regularly. What do you think?

[jeanvaljean]

I think the only reasonable explanation is that you fell prey to a clan of racist vampires. You need to contact the Van Helsing center ASAP.

[Hiromi]

It's because of malaria, and it's specifically because there's no blood test for it and it can be transferred via transfusions

Here's the red cross standards

Malaria is transmitted by the bite of mosquitoes found in certain countries and may be transmitted to patients through blood transfusion. Blood donations are not tested for malaria because there is no sensitive blood test available for malaria.

If you have traveled or lived in a malaria-risk country, we may require a waiting period before you can donate blood.

Wait 3 years after completing treatment for malaria.
Wait 12 months after returning from a trip to an area where malaria is found.
Wait 3 years after living more than 5 years in a country or countries where malaria is found. An additional waiting period of 3 years may be required if you have traveled to an are where malaria is found if you have not lived a consecutive 3 years in a country or countries where malaria is not found.

[JediMindTrick]

Here in the United states my wife is forever banned from giving blood because she lived in England for about 10 months in the early 90's. Apparently there were a few mad cow cases in England around that time and its a disease that can take decades to show up.