'Get your children vaccinated or face fine'

BERLIN: German Health Minister Jens Spahn has drawn up draft legislation to oblige parents to get their children vaccinated against measles or else face fines and their exclusion from daycare.

Spahn’s initiative comes amid a highly charged debate in Germany about whether the measles vaccine should be obligatory, and as the number of cases of the once-eradicated disease in the United States hit the highest levels since 2000.

“I want to eradicate measles,” Spahn told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

“Anyone going to a kindergarten or school should be vaccinated against measles,” said Spahn, setting out his plans, which would oblige parents to show proof of vaccination.

“Whoever does not get their child vaccinated, faces up to 2,500 euros in fines,” he added.

Spahn believes he has broad support for his draft law in the ruling coalition of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, to which he belongs, and the left-leaning Social Democrats (SPD).

SPD health policy expert Karl Lauterbach spoke of a “very good basis” for a joint discussion. “It will not work without fines,” he told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper.

Measles is more contagious than tuberculosis or Ebola, yet it is eminently preventable with a vaccine that costs pennies.

But the World Health Organization last year said cases worldwide had soared nearly 50 per cent in 2018, killing around 136,000 people.

Ukraine, the Philippines and Brazil saw the largest year-on-year increases. In Ukraine alone, there were 35,120 cases — nearly 30,000 more than in 2017.

Brazil saw 10,262 cases in 2018 after having none at all the year before, while the Philippines reported 15,599 cases last year compared to 2,407 in 2017.

Taken together, the ten nations accounting for 75 per cent of the increase from 2017 to 2018 account for only a tenth of the global population.