An Italian health official recently called for mandatory vaccinations for all children going to school – but the Malta Paediatric Association has gone ever further and called for this to be extended to child-care centres and nurseries.

Walter Ricciardi, the director of the Italian national health observatory, was recently in Malta to meet public health officials and provide training for medical leaders. His comments came in the wake of falling vaccination rates which prompted the World Health Organisation to declare the anti-vaccine movement one of the top 10 global health threats for 2019

The Maltese Paediatric Association on Thursday called on the government to pass new legislation as soon as possible, ensuring that parents and custodians of all children in Malta are obliged to vaccinate their children in line with the national immunisation schedule.

“The Ministry of Education should ensure that children will not be admitted to any child care centres, nurseries and schools in Malta without proof that they had received vaccines according to their age as per the national immunisations schedule,” it said.

At the moment, it is mandatory for children in Malta to be vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus and polio by particular ages as stipulated by the national schedule. However, vaccination against pertussis, HiB, mumps, measles and Hepatitis B are not compulsory.

The association did not ask for any other vaccinations to be added to the schedule.

The association said that it was important for children to be vaccinated as decreasing uptake would lower ‘herd immunity’, putting unimmunised children – as well as other children and adults who are in contact with them – at risk of potentially deadly or disabling diseases.