Vaccinations to be made compulsory for state pupils

ROME: The Italian government plans to approve legislation by the next week that will oblige all state school pupils to be immunised, Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin said on Friday.

“I have presented the white paper to the cabinet... it will be passed by decree within seven days,” she said.

Lorenzin has previously sounded the alarm over a recent rise in infectious diseases in Italy, notably measles, in which a growing antivaccine movement is believed to have contributed to.

She has also shared on social media photos of her three-month old twins getting their jabs in a bid to reassure parents spooked by a discredited claims of a link between the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination and autism.

In an interview with daily Corriere della Sera on Friday, Lorenzin blamed “fake news” for the increased number of parents choosing not to immunise their children and said Italy was facing an infectious diseases emergency.

“The anti-vaccine movement has been around for years, but previously it was limited to certain social circles.

“There is an emergency... the population is not adequately protected,” she said.

The forthcoming decree won’t contain a fixed immunisation schedule and the government will add any other necessary vaccinations to the standard set of jabs according to the “epidemiological data”, she said.

Measles cases rose more than fivefold across Italy in April from the same month of 2016, the National Health Institute reported in early May.

Meanwhile, the Italian government on Friday dissolved four town councils in southern Italy for mafia infiltration and cancelled upcoming local polls due in three of them.

The cabinet named the councils as Laureana di Borrello, Bova Marina, and Gioia Tauro in the Calabria region and San Felice a Cancello in the Campania region surrounding Naples.

All four councils will be run by special commissions, the cabinet said.

Interior Minister Marco Minniti requested the councils be disbanded due to “the proven conditioning of their administrative activities by organised crime”, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Laureana di Borrello, Bova Marina, and Gioia Taura had been slated to hold local elections on 11 June.

Dozens of other town councils in southern Italy have been disbanded for mafia infiltration including the Sicilian mafia stronghold of Corleone, which was dissolved last year.