BUENOS AIRES, Argentina,
Health authorities in a western province of Argentina said on Friday they were taking legal action against 15 parents for failing to vaccinate their children amid falling immunisation rates nationwide.
“This is just the beginning,” Mendoza Provincial Health Minister Rodolfo Montero told AFP, adding that more parents would be targeted by lawsuits in the coming days.
Argentina's National Immunisation Schedule mandates over a dozen free compulsory vaccines from birth to adulthood.
As part of a federal republic, provinces in Argentina have a large degree of autonomy over health services.
In August, Mendoza province adopted a new regulation allowing authorities to identify parents who fail to have their children vaccinated.
Under the new provisions, health workers and teachers are required to report non-compliant parents, who could face fines of up to 336,000 pesos ($230), be sentenced to community service or even be sent to prison for a few days.
“The idea is not to persecute families and parents but to manage to immunise thousands of children whose vaccines are not up to date,” Montero said.
He said the punitive approach was producing results, prompting three people targeted in the lawsuits to quickly update their children’s vaccinations.
Local authorities said they are witnessing more of a laissez-faire attitude towards vaccines than an ideological refusal to immunise on, for example, religious grounds.
The overall vaccination rate is 65 per
cent but for some diseases, like measles, rubella and mumps, it hovers at around 50 per
cent.
In 2025, the South American country recorded its first significant outbreak of measles in a generation, with 35 cases reported.
Health authorities have also reported hundreds of cases of whooping cough. Seven children have died from the disease.
