All Japanese citizens who have received their Covid-19 vaccine are not permitted to give blood.
This is not true. Japanese Red Cross guidelines state anyone who has received a vaccine must only wait 48 hours before they can give blood.
A screenshot of a tweet, posted on Instagram, by The Stone Roses’ lead singer Ian Brown claims that all Japanese citizens vaccinated for Covid-19 are not permitted to give blood.
It says: “If the jabs are so safe why has Japan stopped anybody who has had one from giving blood?”
This appears to be based on a claim that surfaced in early May in the US, which has already been disproven by American fact checkers FactCheck.org.
FactCheck.org spoke to Hitoshi Hatta, spokesperson for the Japanese Embassy in Washington D.C, who said people were only restricted from donating blood within 48 hours after vaccination for Covid-19. This, he said, was to give time to recover from any vaccine side-effects.
Mr Hatta added the delay was not related to the safety of the Covid-19 vaccine. At the moment the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is the only vaccine currently authorised for use in Japan.
A Google translation of guidance published at the end of April from the Japanese Red Cross supports his statement.
It states: “Blood donation is not possible for 48 hours after RNA vaccination including RNA vaccine...
“You can donate blood after the above period for both the first and second inoculations.” The guidance came into effect from 14 May.
The delay in England for giving blood after vaccination is even longer. Anyone who has been vaccinated must wait seven days after their Covid-19 vaccination before they can give blood and if they experience any side effects must wait 28 days from recovery.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because Japanese citizens must only wait 48 hours before they can give blood again after they’ve had their vaccine.
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