The Daily Telegraph

Germany gets tough on child jabs

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GERMANY will pass a law next week obliging kindergart­ens to tell the authoritie­s if parents fail to consult a doctor about vaccinatin­g their children.

Parents who refuse to take their doctor’s advice risk fines of up to €2,500 (£2,180) under the law expected to come into force on June 1.

Vaccinatio­n rules are being tightened across Europe, where a decline in immunisati­on has caused a spike in measles, chicken pox and mumps, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

“Nobody can be indifferen­t to the fact that people are still dying of measles,” German health minister Hermann Gröhe told Bild newspaper.

Italy made vaccinatio­n compulsory this month after officials warned that a fall-off in immunisati­on rates had triggered a measles epidemic, with more than 2,000 cases this year, almost 10 times the 2015 total.

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