THE German Government has announced hefty fines for parents who fail to vaccinate their children in the face of a measles epidemic spreading across Europe, reports the Daily Mail.
Under the new laws, kindergartens will be required to report parents with no evidence of vaccination, potentially resulting in fines up to 2,500 (~AU$3,750) for ignoring the new rules.
The World Health Organisation has alerted European leaders of the disease's ubiquitous spread which is blamed largely on the discredited controversy around the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) link to autism.
"Continuing deaths from measles cannot leave anyone indifferent," Health Minister Hermann Grhe told German tabloid Bild.
"That's why we are tightening up regulations on vaccination," he said.
Soon, failure to provide a doctor's note proving vaccination could mean expulsion of the child from daycare centres in Germany.
Medical authorities at the Robert Koch Institute said the country had 410 measles cases by mid-Apr this year, compared with 325 for the whole of 2016.
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