BACKGROUND In many European countries, vaccinations are offered to the elderly. Expanding the programme to include routine vaccination against pneumococcal disease, herpes zoster, and pertussis, for example, could reduce disease burden amongst the growing population of persons aged 50 years and older. Since most countries involve general practitioners (GPs) in the programmes, the potential succ...

BACKGROUND Childhood vaccinations are a core component of public health programmes globally. Recent measles outbreaks in the UK and USA have prompted debates about new ways to increase uptake of childhood vaccinations. Parental financial incentives and quasi-mandatory interventions (e.g. restricting entry to educational settings to fully vaccinated children) have been successfully used to incre...

The burden of infectious diseases preventable by vaccination decreased considerably over last decades in all countries provided with effective immunization schedules. Implementation of these programs with new vaccines has started discussion on duality between mandatory and recommended vaccinations. Regional autonomy has allowed the Veneto Region, with introduction of Law 7/2007, to experience s...

The test of whether a proposed mandatory vaccination program is constitutional needs updating. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court over a century ago, laid out the proper reasoning and concerns to be addressed when determining the legality of mandatory vaccinations, but its analysis is tailored to the extreme case of the smallpox epidemic. As more vaccinations are creat...

BACKGROUND Despite provision of free childhood vaccinations, less than half of all Ugandan infants are fully vaccinated. This study compares women with some secondary schooling to those with only primary schooling with regard to their infants' vaccination status. METHODS A community-based prospective cohort study conducted between January 2006 and May 2008 in which 696 pregnant women were fol...