All healthcare professionals – and in particular those who work for the NHS - are ethically "obligated to inform, advise and promote vaccinations in accordance with the most advanced scientific evidence". Disseminating unproven information, on the other hand, is "morally reprehensible" and "constitutes a serious infringement of professional ethics". It is one of the most controversial passages of the 2017-2019 National Vaccine Plan, drawn up by the Ministry of Health and approved yesterday by the Regions with open arms. «It is an important day» commented the president of the Conference of Regions, Stefano Bonaccini «The issue of vaccinations is fundamental for a serious approach in terms of prevention, both with respect to the reappearance of pathologies that we believed 
now definitively outdated, both with respect to the coverage necessary for other serious diseases and for the weakest sections of the population".
The unanimous yes of the Regions can also be explained with the acceptance of their request to give more gradualness to the new vaccination calendar, more extensive than the previous one. Therefore, the new offer of vaccines introduced by the Plan will not be immediately accessible in all Regions: on the one hand, prophylaxis for pneumococcus, meningococcus, chicken pox, anti-Hpv vaccine, on the other vaccines (free for each age group and for categories at risk) against meningococcus B and rotavirus, varicella (second year and then 5-6 years), HPV in 11-year-old males, meningo tetravalent IPV, pneumococcus and zoster. The new calendar, assured the Minister of Health, Beatrice Lorenzin, will be operational in a few weeks: «We have to wait for publication in the gazette» she said yesterday «from that moment it enters into force. Then there will be a circular which will give indications on how to proceed and the distribution of the fund (of 800 million, ed)». Codacons, on the other hand, has already announced an appeal to the Tar for those passages of the Plan which "open the way for a national law aimed at making vaccination a prerequisite for attendance at kindergartens and schools".
(AS – 20/01/2017 – Federfarma)
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