Malaria

Information concerning malaria risk has been sourced from Health Protection Scotland (www.travax.nhs.uk/) with some modifications to account for typical donor travel patterns, entry points to the countries concerned, areas where reporting is compromised and ease of use for end users. They are not identical to those found on the ‘Fit for Travel’ website which is designed to inform travellers decisions about anti-malarial therapy rather than give assurance of safety of blood donations for recipient patients.

Countries with malarial risk have been categorised into three groups:

A. Countries where the malarial risk is present in the whole country all year or with very clear seasonal guidance.

B. Countries where only parts of the country are affected.

C. Indicates that only part of the country is affected in discrete pockets, or the risk of infection is low or that there are few visitors to the affected areas. It is likely that tourists who visit these countries will be able to donate but individual assessment must be applied. Donors are likely to have detailed knowledge of the malarial areas visited. The health care professional should establish whether the donor sought advice prior to travel or not and if they were advised to take anti malarial precautions.

Malaria Maps

The maps included are to be used to accompany the GDRI when assessing the malaria risk for a donor. They have been sourced from the Fit for travel website. It is important to apply the GDRI guidance for all infection risks; these maps only provide advice for malaria risk.

Use Of Maps

Maps are provided to allow staff to assess the malaria risk for the areas within these countries that a donor has visited. The text of the GDRI should be taken as the main source to make decisions. The maps present information about neighbouring countries but this should not be used for malarial assessment. The advice below each map relates to the Fit for travel website. Decisions regarding malaria guidance should be made using the template below.

    The colours used in the maps are presented below.

Colour	Sample	Text	Action
Red		High risk	Apply Malaria Donor Selection Guideline
Dark pink/hatched		Variable risk/low risk	Apply Malaria Donor Selection Guideline
Light pink		Low to no risk	Can donate
Yellow		Surrounding country with malaria risk	Do not use for malaria assessment
Green		(Surrounding country with no malaria risk)	Do not use for malaria assessment

All maps were downloaded from the Fit for travel website (www.fitfortravel.nhs.uk)

Airport Stopovers

The definition of an Airport Stopover, as approved by The Standing Advisory Committee on Transfusion Transmitted Infections, is:
A transit through an airport during which the traveller has not left the airport.

When the donor's visit has consisted only of an airport stopover there is no need to refer to the Geographical Disease Risk Index.

This section was last updated in GDRI Edition 002, Release 24, Issue 01