Italian vaccine policy – bans unvaccinated kids from school
The Italian vaccine policy has been perplexing over the past few years. Although Italy is not the center of the vaccine universe, there have been some amusing and troubling decisions out of Italy that have caused me to write about it on a number of occasions.
Implementing smart public health policy, Italy has decided that if a child under the age of 6 has not been vaccinated, they will not be able to attend kindergartens or elementary school. And if the child is between ages 7-16, the parents will face a fine. This happened despite the promises of the new Italian government elected in 2018 which seemed to delay the previous government’s law that mandated vaccines.
However, the recent measles epidemic hitting Europe, mostly caused by vaccine refusal, and relatively low vaccination rates in the country, probably convinced the government that it needed to protect its citizens.
Let’s take a short look at the Italian vaccine policy over the years, and see how we got here.Read More »Italian vaccine policy – bans unvaccinated kids from school