When can I give blood after a cold, medicine or a vaccine?
Usually you wait a few days: seven after a cold or flu and after antibiotics, seven after a tooth out. The waits below are from the table ITKS and ZTKV publish, counted from recovery or the last dose. The doctor at the donation has the final word.
Colds, flu and infections
- A cold, runny nose or flu: 7 days after recovery.
- An infection of the airways: 14 days.
- Pneumonia: 90 days.
- The questionnaire also asks whether you had a temperature over 38 °C, a runny nose or a cold in the last 7 to 10 days.
Medicines
- Antibiotics: 7 days after the last dose.
- Aspirin, naproxen, piroxicam: 5 days.
- Brufen, Voltaren and the like: 2 days.
- Anticoagulants: 14 days.
- For most other medicines you wait until the medicine has left the body, which depends on the medicine: tell the doctor what you take.
The questionnaire asks whether you took any medicine in the last two or three days, for example Brufen, Kafetin or Analgin.
Vaccines
- Flu jabs and other inactivated vaccines, tetanus, diphtheria, preventive hepatitis A and B vaccines: no wait.
- Live vaccines, for example against measles, rubella, mumps or yellow fever, and BCG: 28 days.
- Rabies vaccine: 360 days.
Teeth, surgery and alcohol
- A tooth out and minor dental work: 7 days.
- Minor outpatient surgery: 7 days. Major surgery, a transfusion or an endoscopy with a biopsy: 180 days.
- Alcohol: the questionnaire asks about the last 6 hours, and after being drunk you wait one day.
Travel abroad
The questionnaire asks whether you travelled abroad in the last six months, but the services publish no general wait: it depends on the country and the diseases common there, and the doctor decides.
From which day exactly
On the Can I donate? screen enter the date of the cold, the tooth out or the surgery, and the app works out from which day you can give, by the rules of the service running the drive.