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Parents who refuse to vaccinate their children against measles in Germany could be fined up to 2,500 euros (£ 2,130), according to a bill introduced by Health Minister Jens Spahn.
The law, which is expected to come into effect on March 1, 2022 if passed by Parliament by the end of this year, would make measles vaccination mandatory for all children in nurseries and schools, as well as teachers, educators and the medical staff of hospitals and surgeries.
By July 2020, parents enrolling their children in kindergartens or schools will either have to provide proof that their children have been vaccinated, or evidence of a health problem preventing their offspring to contract the sting.
According to estimates by the Ministry of Health, the law also affects about 361,000 unvaccinated children already attending a school or kindergarten, as well as some 220,000 adults.
"All parents should be safe knowing that their children can not be infected and threatened by measles," said Spahn in an interview with the newspaper Bild am Sonntag.
In recent months, governments around the world have been forced to act because of the rising number of measles cases and the growing trend of "reluctance to be vaccinated", driven in part by awareness against vaccination. The German disease control agency, the Robert Koch Institute, registered 170 new cases of measles in the first two months of 2019 alone.
The measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is one of the priorities of the "anti-vaxxer" movement. In 1998, the discredited doctor Andrew Wakefield published in the Lancet fraudulent research suggesting that the vaccine had a role in autism.
Measles can lead to debilitating or life-threatening complications, including encephalitis, pneumonia and permanent vision loss, to which infants and young children whose immune systems are weakened are particularly vulnerable.
In Germany, coverage with the first dose of measles vaccine has stagnated in recent years to 93%, less than the 95% coverage imposed by the World Health Organization to prevent mass epidemics. In 2017, only the two eastern states, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Brandenburg, complied with WHO's "herd vaccination" requirement, with coverage of only 89% in Baden-Württemberg, rich southwest of the country.
"I want to eliminate measles," said Spahn, former candidate for the succession of Angela Merkel at the head of the Christian Democratic Union, hailing vaccination as "one of the greatest achievements of humanity".
The minister's initiative was greeted by members of the Social Democratic Party, the coalition's young partner in the government of the German "grand coalition". "Individual freedom finds its limits where it endangers the health of others," said Andrea Nahles, head of the SPD, who said his party supported the bill. "That's why I think it's important to make vaccination mandatory against infectious diseases such as measles."
Some Green Party politicians have expressed reservations about the proposals, saying that mandatory vaccination would increase mistrust among skeptics. "Spahn should focus on convincing people … instead of coercing them," Green politician Kordula Schulz-Asche told Tagesspiegel newspaper.
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