Prevention of HIV Transmission through Blood

Voluntary blood donors are essential to the supply of safe blood

One of the main routes of HIV transmission is through blood. This occurs mainly through the use of unscreened, HIV infected blood or blood products in transfusions and unsafe injection of drugs.

Preventing the transfusion of HIV infected blood or blood products can be greatly reduced by screening all blood supplies for the virus, and by heat-treating blood products where possible. Providing drug users with a good supply of new or sterilised needles and syringes, through needle and syringe exchange programmes, is one of the main methods, grouped under the term ‘harm reduction’, used to prevent HIV infection from injecting drug use. Methadone maintenance and other drug treatment programmes are also effective ways to eliminate the risk of HIV infection as they remove the need to inject drugs altogether.

This page leads you to information and case studies about harm reduction and HIV and blood safety. It examines the evidence behind these HIV prevention methods, the varying opinions and approaches to implementing them.