US soldiers back from Iraq barred from donating blood

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, October 24, 2003

US soldiers back from Iraq barred from donating blood

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United States soldiers returning from Iraq will not be allowed to donate blood for up to a year in order to prevent a rare skin parasite from spreading into the US blood supply, federal health officials said Thursday.

The Department of Defense and the nation's largest association of blood banks ordered the ban after 22 members of the US military had been found infected by the disease, called leishmaniasis, since August last year.

The infected soldiers come from different branches of the US military and most had been deployed in Iraq. All of them recoveredafter being treated for three weeks.

Leishmaniasis, usually caused by the bite of sand flies, can cause serious skin lesions. It is endemic in the Middle East and some tropical areas and infects more than 1.5 million people a year.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said the parasite can be spread through blood transfusions, but there are no reports of infections occurring through blood transfusions in the United States.

A similar ban was issued after the first Gulf War in the early 1990s, when 12 members of the military were found to be infected with the leishmaniasis parasite.

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