Measles triple in Italy as parents shun vaccine

ROME: The number of measles cases in Italy has tripled this year, largely because parents are not getting children vaccinated due to spurious health scares, the health ministry said on Friday.

More than 700 cases have been registered since the start of 2017 -- compared with 220 in the same period last year and 844 for the whole of 2016.

Over half have been among 15-39 year-olds and the outbreak has been concentrated in some of the country’s wealthiest urban centres: Rome, Turin, Milan and Florence.

The ministry said the surge showed a worrying number of younger Italians were not fully vaccinated against the disease.

"This is largely due to the growing number of parents who refuse vaccinations despite the established scientific evidence of their effectiveness," it said.

According to ministry data, only 85.3 percent of Italian two-year-olds had been vaccinated in 2015, well short of the 95 percent threshold recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to contain outbreaks.