US county stops children without jab going outside

CHILDREN under 18 who have not been vaccinated against measles have been banned from going out in public in a US county after a severe outbreak of the disease.

Parents who break the order will be fined $500 (£377) and jailed for up to six months after officials declared a state of emergency in Rockland County, north of New York.

The ban was introduced after the county recorded 153 confirmed cases of measles, nearly half the 314 that have been reported in the whole of the US.

It comes as the global antivaccine movement grows, fuelled by religious beliefs and the discredited theory that the jab can cause autism. Rockland officials said they had encountered some ‘resistance’ to vaccinations.