Parents to be sanctioned for failing to vaccinate kids: health minister

ROME, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Italian Parents who fail to vaccinate their children for ideological reasons will be sanctioned, Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin said Wednesday.

The government last year passed a decree making immunizations against 11 diseases -- including polio, tetanus, and measles -- mandatory and a precondition for attending school.

The decree sparked an outcry from so-called no-vax campaigners, who believe vaccines are a plot to use children as guinea pigs and that vaccines cause autism.

The populist Five Star Movement and the rightwing, anti-immigrant League party have pledged to scrap compulsory vaccinations ahead of a national election to be held on March 4.

"The only families sanctioned will be those who refused to vaccinate their children for ideological reasons," ANSA news agency cited Lorenzin as saying. "Those who thought we weren't taking this seriously will find out they were quite wrong."

Italy is in the midst of a measles epidemic, with almost 5,000 confirmed cases and four measles-related deaths, according to recent data published by the health ministry. Enditem