Italy: The Government in Italy has made it mandatory for kids to get vaccinated against 12 common diseases in order to get enrolled in Schools.
The order was made mandatory seeing the recent drop in immunity in children under the influence of anti- scientific theories among the society.
Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni blamed “spread of anti-scientific theories” as the reason for parents withdrawing from vaccination of their kids.
Now that the Government has made it mandatory for kids to get vaccinated in order to get enrolled in schools, parents, on the other hand, would be fined if they do not get their kids vaccinated by the age of 6.
Conspiracy theories have circulated around the world related to the health risks of certain vaccinations by some random discredited paper manipulating people into believing to boycott vaccination.
In Italy, the rate of vaccinations among two years old kids dropped from 90% to 80%.
Measles is one of the highly contagious diseases which can lead to death.
“The lack of appropriate measures over the years and the spread of anti-scientific theories, especially in recent months, has brought about a reduction in protection,” Mr. Gentiloni told a press conference on Friday.
Children must be vaccinated against the following twelve diseases:
- polio
- diphtheria
- tetanus
- hepatitis B
- haemophilus influenzae B
- meningitis B
- meningitis C
- measles
- mumps
- rubella
- whooping cough
- chickenpox
Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin said “We are sending a very strong message to the public”.
Measles recently broke out in Europe, with the ‘anti-wax’ movement through Europe due to campaigns held against vaccinations has manipulated most of the people call off immunization.
Andrew Wakefield published a long-discredited paper about the health risks parents are subjecting their kids to by vaccinating them. This created scare among most of the people.
He was later disqualified from records of the UK medical register for his false claims about the link between the diseases like measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR) and autism and bowel disease in children.
His claims were based on the experience of 12 children, and no other study proved his claims right, as reported in BBC News.