Messages on social networks ensure that only people who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 can donate blood and semen. It’s false. The health authorities recommend donating blood to people who have been inoculated against this disease and three experts consulted by VerificaRTVE explain that the serum does not prevent or have negative effects on blood and semen donation.
“Why is it that sperm and blood donors are only unvaccinated?” we read in an Instagram comment posted on March 14. The same idea has been circulating on social networks since the vaccination campaign against COVID-19 began at the end of 2020, with messages such as: “I am a blood donor, I don’t even get vaccinated, anyone who gets vaccinated cannot donate.”
The vaccine does not affect sperm donation or reduce its quality
Vaccination against the coronavirus does not prevent men from donating semen or have negative effects on sperm quality. This is what the director of the Semen Bank of the Puigvert Foundation in Barcelona, the andrologist Lluís Bassas Arnau, assures VerificaRTVE, who affirms that “It is recommended that everyone get vaccinated and this is no different for sperm donors”.
Regarding the waiting time between the application of the anticovid vaccine and the donation, this specialist affirms that “normally you have to wait a month, especially in case adverse effects of the vaccine appear ”. He explains that “sometimes the serum can cause fever and this is related to a drop in seminal quality.” As a precautionary measure, the endocrinologist assures that in the donation centers they try to “donors do not have active coronavirus during the period in which they make the donations”. Arnau points out that for months “a negative PCR” has not been necessary to be a sperm donor and adds that “only a clinical screening is carried out”, in which it is confirmed that the donor “has not had symptoms in the last three weeks nor has been in contact with high-risk people or with COVID-19.”
Sperm donation is regulated in Spain in accordance with the Law on Assisted Human Reproduction Techniques. The National Commission for Assisted Human Reproduction explains in this informative document how the semen donation procedure is regulated and points out that the donor’s state of health and seminal quality must be studied. Neither the informative document of the National Commission nor the Law on Assisted Human Reproduction Techniques make any reference to the vaccines that a potential donor may have received.
At VerificaRTVE we have already denied the hoax that states that the anticovid vaccine reduces the quality of sperm. In November 2022, Bassas Arnau made it clear that there is no scientific evidence to show that the coronavirus vaccine affects testicular cells. “There is no type of vaccine, neither inactivated virus nor messenger RNA, that has significant effects on semen quality or on the pregnancy rate of women,” concluded the director of the Fundació Puigvert’s Sperm Bank. from Barcelona.
You can donate blood 24 hours after the anticovid vaccine
The Ministry of Health maintains that “having been vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 with any of the vaccines currently being used in Spain It is not a problem when donating blood.”, as you can read in this press release from August 2021. Other entities such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Blood and Tissue Bank of Catalonia They also defend that people vaccinated against the coronavirus can donate blood and plasma. José Antonio Forcada, president of the National Association of Nursing and Vaccines, maintains that “there is no risk” in donating blood from a person vaccinated against this disease. “The antibodies are eliminated in the process that is done with the blood before transfusing it,” he told VerificaRTVE. The expert in hematology Cristina Arbona agrees with this idea, who confirmed that the vaccinated person can donate blood when 24 hours have elapsed after the injection and it is “in good condition”. Arbona emphasizes that to date “the recipients have not had any type of complication and the blood has been just as effective as before the vaccine was administered”.
