ROME, July 28 (Xinhua) -- So-called "no-vax" protesters attacked three lawmakers Friday after Italy's parliament gave final approval to a measure making vaccines mandatory for children aged up to 16 years.
Italy has seen a drop-off in immunizations in the midst of highly organized "no-vax" campaigns claiming that vaccines cause autism, and that they are a plot hatched by greedy multinationals in collusion with corrupt politicians.
Outside parliament after Friday's vote, the three MPs from the ruling center-left Democrartic Party -- a strong backer of the vaccines measure -- were surrounded and insulted by dozens of "no-vax" protesters, who kicked and punched their car, according to local media reports.
TV footages showed screaming women and some men, some holding children in their arms, were shouting insults and calling the MPs "murderers".
"My full solidarity to colleagues from the PD who were insulted by the 'no vax'. The vaccines decree safeguards everyone's health," tweeted Italian Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin.
The measure includes immunization against highly contagious diseases such as measles, polio, and rubella, and makes completing these vaccinations a pre-requisite for children to attend school.
It raises the number of free and mandatory vaccines from four to 10. The health ministry originally wanted to make 12 vaccines mandatory, but two were scrapped during parliamentary debates.
The measure became law on Friday, and not in June as previously reported.
The populist Five Star Movement, which is polling neck and neck with the ruling Democratic Party, endorses the "no-vax" position. One of its MPs last month accused the health minister of "receiving Rolex watches" in exchange for the vaccines measure. It voted against the measure on Friday, along with the right-wing anti-immigrant Northern League party.
Italy is in the midst of what the health ministry is calling an "ongoing measles epidemic" that flared up in January this year, with 3,842 cases and three deaths through July 23, and some 89 percent of new cases occurring in people who were never vaccinated against the highly contagious viral disease.
Measles has the potential for large outbreaks wherever immunization coverage has dropped below the necessary threshold of 95 percent of the population, which is the case right now in Italy and Romania, both of which are experiencing the largest measles outbreaks in Europe, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
It is globally still one of the leading causes of childhood mortality, and the only way to prevent it is by immunization, according to the WHO.
