ROME, March 12 (Xinhua) -- Preliminary data showed immunization in Italy was basically restored, some eight months after vaccination was made compulsory for school children, the health authorities said on Monday.
"In the latest months we have seen the immunization coverage increase," a top official of the National Health Institute (ISS) told local media.
"We have exceeded the 95-percent threshold for the hexavalent vaccine, as such attaining the herd immunity that was the goal of the (recent) legislation," Giovanni Rezza, director of the ISS Infectious Diseases Department, told state-run RAI News TV channel.
"As for measles, we have registered an increase of about 6 percent in vaccination, so we are closed to the threshold," he added.
Rezza specified data were still provisional, and a definitive, nation-wide picture of the situation would be available in about one month.
Italy made vaccination compulsory for school pupils in 2017, after health authorities had reported a worrying downward trend in the levels of immunization in recent years. Experts attributed the drop to misinformation, and a national campaign to raise awareness on vaccines' safety and utility was launched, along with a legislative initiative.
In May last year, the Italian cabinet delivered a decree making 12 vaccinations mandatory for all school children up to 16 years. After being passed by parliament in late July, the new law reduced the number of compulsory vaccinations from 12 to 10 -- including polio, tetanus, hepatitis B, measles, mumps, and rubella -- and made four of them strongly recommended.
