EUROPE'S VACCINE CONFIDENCE

LOW levels of public confidence in vaccines in the European Union are pushing immunisation rates down and the number disease outbreaks up, according to an expert report on Tuesday.

Recent outbreaks of measles - the highest number in the EU for seven years - are a sign of the immediate impact on declining vaccine coverage, the report said, and should prompt governments to act to boost vaccine awareness and confidence.

The report, published by the European Commission and compiled by a team of scientists led by  Heidi Lanson, a professor and director of the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of  Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, found different trends in vaccine confidence across EU member states.

Some - including France, Greece, Italy and Slovenia - have become much more confident in vaccine safety since 2015, while others, such as Czech Republic, Finland, Poland, and Sweden, have become less confident.

The EU's health commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis said the report findings showed ''the need for EU action''.

He noted that Europe has lower confidence in the safety of vaccines than other regions of the world, that seven out of  of the 10 countries with the lowest vaccine confidence in the world are in Europe : France, Greece, Italy and Slovenia.

''This is partly due to  the rising influence of  diverse anti-vaccine groups that spread misleading information through the Internet or in political fora,'' he said.

''Their influence should make us all cautious''. [Agencies]