In a move which could force the postponement of surgery in some hospitals, the Irish Blood Transfusion Service is to refuse to take blood from about 12,000 donors who lived in the United Kingdom when BSE was at its height.
Announcing the move yesterday, the IBTS medical director, Dr William Murphy, said "massive public support" would be needed to make up the shortfall.
Already in the past year some hospitals have postponed operations because they could not get enough blood.
The new policy will remove 12 per cent of donors, who give 20,000 donations a year.
It has been adopted to minimise any possible risk of transmitting variant CJD - a fatal brain disease which may be linked to BSE in animals - by blood transfusion.
From March 31st, blood will not be taken from people who lived in the UK for five years or more between January 1st 1980 and December 31st 1996.
From September, donations will be refused from people who have lived in the UK for one year or more during the period.
Dr Murphy said the new rules applied both to people who spent a continuous period in the UK over the five-year or one-year limit and to those who visited for shorter periods which added up to five years or one year.
He said that by the UK, the board meant Northern Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.
The five-month gap before the more severe one-year ban is implemented is meant to allow the IBTS time to run a campaign for new donors.
This will include letters to 160,000 previous donors, new donation centres in Cork, Dublin, Galway and Limerick, and new mobile collection teams in the west, north-east and north midlands.
Hospitals are being asked to manage surgery in ways which minimise the amount of blood transfusions needed.
To date, 95 cases of variant CJD have been recorded in the UK and one in Ireland in a woman who had lived in the UK during the period in question. These cases have been linked to eating infected bovine meat products during the period.
IBTS chief executive officer Mr Martin Hynes said the Minister for Health and Children, Mr Martin, had agreed to establish a national blood strategy implementation group to promote the implementation of good policies and practice guidelines. The new body will represent health boards, hospitals, the Department of Health and Children and the IBTS.
He said he wanted to thank people who had donated blood in the past but who could no longer do so because of the new rules.
Further information is being posted on the IBTS website at http://www.ibts.ie
pomorain@irish-times.ie