Previously, men who have sex with men were banned from donating blood if they had been sexually active within the last six months. Up until 2019, the period was 12 months.

The Czech Health Ministry has now issued a new decree, developed in collaboration with the Czech Society for Transfusion Medicine, that excludes all individuals who engage in certain high-risk sexual practices from donating blood, regardless of sexual orientation or gender.

However, it added, “men who had sexual intercourse with men shall not be excluded.”

“Every healthy Czech person who wants to save lives by donating blood should have that opportunity,” said the decree.

The change was welcomed by LGBT organizations in the Czech Republic.

“Discriminating against anyone (not only) on the basis of gender, identity, or orientation is absurd and does not belong in a modern society,” Eliška Černá from Prague Pride told TVP World.

She added: “It is even more absurd if such discrimination is created and supported directly by the state. We are therefore happy when we see something changing, moving, and improving.”

According to the Czech Red Cross, experts estimate that at least 300,000 regular donors would be needed to supply hospitals with blood adequately, and about 5,000 more new donors per year would be necessary to cover a decline in the number of donors due to age or disease.

The ministry previously defended the old exclusionary policy, claiming that gay men had higher risks of contracting HIV infections owing to engaging in anal intercourse.

The country decriminalized homosexuality when it was under communist rule as a satellite state of the Soviet Union in 1961, which was much earlier than many Western European countries like England, Norway, and West Germany. It was after Czechoslovak sexologists concluded that male homosexuality was not a disease in the 1950s that the communist government agreed to drop homosexuality from the criminal code.