Abstract Background The Transfusion‐Transmissible Infections Monitoring System assesses trends in ~60% of the US blood supply. Donors with high‐risk behaviors, including injection drug users, men having sex with other men, or those exchanging sex for money/drugs, were deferred for 12 months (12 M) from 2016 to 2020 and 3 months (3M) from 2020 to 2023. Here we evaluate HIV, HBV, and HCV donation prevalence annually from 2015 to 2023 and in two comparison periods of pre‐3M (2015–2020) and 3M (2020–2023) to identify differences between the two periods. Methods Annual prevalence was assessed for 8 TTIMS years (2015–2023) and compared between the pre‐3M and 3M periods. HIV, HBV, and HCV prevalence/100,000 donations (phtd) was calculated based on serology and nucleic acid testing results. Negative binomial regression assessed prevalence using 1‐year intervals. Fisher's exact test evaluated prevalence changes between the two periods ( α = 0.05). Results Annual HIV and HBV prevalence remained stable, changing slightly from year 1 to 8 (2.5–2.1 phtd for HIV and 6.3–6.6 phtd for HBV). HCV prevalence declined (19.7–9.6 phtd; p <.01). HIV (2.5–2.0 phtd) and HCV (18.4–9.8 phtd) prevalence decreased from pre‐3M to 3M ( p <.01), while HBV prevalence remained stable (6.5–6.2 phtd; p = .06). Conclusions Despite reducing donor deferral periods for many infectious risk behaviors, HIV and HBV prevalence were stable, while HCV prevalence declined over 8 years. Either slight or significant declines occurred from the pre‐3M to 3M period for all agents. Thus, changes in policy did not adversely impact the current safety of the blood supply with respect to the major infectious disease agents.
Huseynova et al. (2025) studied this question.