The situation in Italy regarding the
vaccines: almost in all regions there is less than 95 percent coverage, a threshold that does not guarantee herd immunity. The past few days have seen yet another outbreak, this time of measles, at Bari Children’s Hospital. “Since 2006, prophylaxis has been steadily declining in Italy, and coverage is not as a developed country. In 2016 the measles vaccination rate was lower than Ghana and Sierra Leone. In Mexico there are no indigenous cases of measles, recently there have been three infections, all Italian patients,” says Professor Roberto Burioni, a renowned immunologist who has received press attention for his fight against the no vax movement.
Data in hand, in Italy, only in Lazio has exceeded the safe threshold with 95.3 percent prophylaxis against the exanthematous disease, while in other regions the percentage stands at 90 percent, not counting areas that support the movement no vax: “The worst, unbelievably, is the province of Bolzano, where, moreover, health care is well organized. Then there are areas where no vax people are particularly vibrant, such as Rimini and Pesaro, where activists scare parents,” says Dr. Burioni. It happened to see a small plane with an “Everyone in school, freedom of choice” banner flying over the beaches of Romagna in support of an anti-vaccine campaign.
“When attention is slackened on some infectious diseases and only revived in cases of death, it is not a good sign. We reiterated in the Health Commission hearing that easing the vaccination requirement at this stage is a mistake. So better to leave it and then, as the law requires, reevaluate in light of the results, but only when we are safe. And now we are not.”, Ricciardi argues.
Confirming this are the numbers: each year about 1 percent of parents do not vaccinate their children, so that creates 80 to 100 thousand children who will not perform prophylaxis by choice. As Dr. Burioni has already mentioned, the vaccine situation is tragic in some cities, such as Bolzano, where there is only 71 percent coverage for measles, 85 percent for polio and diphtheria, and only 67 percent for anti-meningococcal C. Several South Tyrolean parents wanted to enroll their children at Austrian schools to escape prophylaxis. “We need to make it mandatory and make people understand that not vaccinating endangers their children and also those close to them.”
