Germany gets tough on child jabs
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.