The sick-day rules are the shortest rules in donation. Any active infection, cough, cold, sore throat, fever, stomach bug, defers you until you are fully recovered. Not because one sniffle ruins a unit, but because the rule must be blind to severity to be safe at scale. ## What counts as “recovered” - Symptoms fully gone (not “mostly gone, except”)
- Fever-free without paracetamol for at least a day or two
- If antibiotics: the course completed, not abandoned halfway
- Back to your normal energy A leftover mild sniffle at day five without fever? Most centres will take you with an honest declaration. A wet cough on day two? Come back next week. ## The part people get wrong Donors with a mild cold sometimes donate anyway to “not waste the appointment.” The appointment is not the scarce resource, the trust in every unit is. Declaring a sniffle and walking away costs nothing; it is also exactly the habit that keeps the blood supply safe. ## Seasonal fevers (dengue, typhoid, malaria) These defer you much longer, weeks to months after recovery, because they linger in blood. Our dengue and platelet pages cover the monsoon-specific rules.