Palermo, 22 Aug. (LaPresse) – The Palermo Juvenile Prosecutor, Claudia Caramanna, has opened a civil investigation to assess the parental responsibility of the parents of Anna Rosa Bartolotta, the four-and-a-half-year-old girl who died on Thursday from diphtheria. Like her four siblings, the little girl had not been vaccinated by choice of her mother and father, both of whom are anti-vaxxers. The Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office has interviewed the doctors and the paediatrician who examined the girl in the days leading up to her first admission to Cervello Hospital. The paediatrician told investigators of the difficulty in vaccinating children in the neighbourhood. The order states “that in the Zen neighbourhood there is a popular belief that children become autistic as a result of vaccinations and for this reason parents categorically refuse to have their children undergo compulsory vaccination”. For this reason, the Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office has ordered an urgent investigation into nursery and primary schools in the northern part of Palermo to ascertain whether there are unvaccinated children attending school. “A booking alone does not grant access to the schools,” emphasises Prosecutor Caramanna. She is referring to the ploy used by anti-vaccine families to circumvent the compulsory vaccination requirement in schools. Whilst attendance is optional up to primary school, from the first day of the first cycle every child entering the classroom must have received the hexavalent vaccine.
Palermo: Girl dies of diphtheria; Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office opens investigation into parental responsibility
Palermo, 22 Aug. (LaPresse) – The Palermo Juvenile Prosecutor, Claudia Caramanna, has opened a civil investigation to assess the parental responsibility of the parents of Anna Rosa Bartolotta, the four-and-a-half-year-old girl who died on Thursday from diphtheria. Like her four siblings, the little girl had not been vaccinated by choice of her mother and father, both of whom are anti-vaxxers. The Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office has interviewed the doctors and the paediatrician who examined the girl in the days leading up to her first admission to Cervello Hospital. The paediatrician told investigators of the difficulty in vaccinating children in the neighbourhood. The order states “that in the Zen neighbourhood there is a popular belief that children become autistic as a result of vaccinations and for this reason parents categorically refuse to have their children undergo compulsory vaccination”. For this reason, the Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office has ordered an urgent investigation into nursery and primary schools in the northern part of Palermo to ascertain whether there are unvaccinated children attending school. “A booking alone does not grant access to the schools,” emphasises Prosecutor Caramanna. She is referring to the ploy used by anti-vaccine families to circumvent the compulsory vaccination requirement in schools. Whilst attendance is optional up to primary school, from the first day of the first cycle every child entering the classroom must have received the hexavalent vaccine.