Anti-vaccination parents face jail time after Uganda passes new law

“Anti-vaxxers” could face up to six months in prison in the central African nation of Uganda after claims by the Health Minister and others that a growing religious “cult” is preventing parents from having their children immunized.

The new law was signed by President Yoweri Museveni on March 10, but it wasn’t announced until this week.

The Immunization Act would require parents to have their children get shots for diseases such as measles, polio, tuberculosis and meningitis – or face jail time.

Children would also be denied education as it requires them to possess an immunization card to attend school.

The ‘anti-vaxxer’ organization known as the 666 has been hiding children in slums to prevent them from receiving shots, Health Minister Sarah Achieng Opendi told the BBC.

“It started in a few districts in eastern Uganda, but now it has spread and now we are seeing it all over the country,” she said.

666 members were arrested in 2014 after discouraging followers from participating in a national identity card registration. Local media claims the 666 are unwilling to participate in anything to do with numbers and also prohibit visiting hospitals to receive medical treatment.

READ MORE: Anti-vaccine parents to stop receiving childcare benefits under Australian ‘no jab, no pay’ law

There was an estimated 10,000 members of the 666 in Uganda in 2014. Previously no law was in place that would allow for their arrest if found to be preventing children from being vaccinated.

Opendi claims 3 percent of the country’s children have not had the required immunizations, including for polio and meningitis.

About 3 million children under the age of five years old die each year in the African region, with a considerable number of those deaths preventable by vaccine, according to the World Health Organization.

Western countries, including the US, have seen a rapid rise in the anti-vaxxer movement, particularly among affluent white parents and celebrities like Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey, and Donald Trump.

In California, the rate of “vaccine refusal” doubled from 2007 to 2013 to 3.06 percent, with 5.43 percent exempt in private schools compared to 2.88 percent in public, according to the American Journal of Public Health.

Fears link the vaccines to autism and other side effects, including a resurgence in the disease they supposedly prevent and paralysis.

They cite patients in India who had previously been given a polio vaccination.

The parents of Ezekiel Stephan are currently on trial in Canada after he died from meningitis.

They are charged with failing to provide the 19-month-old with the necessities of life. Instead of medical treatment, the toddler was given home and herbal treatments, including smoothies and apple cider vinegar.

Last week, Robert De Niro defended the screening of an anti-vaxxer documentary [“Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe” ] at the Tribeca Film Festival. [De Niro withdrew the screening later, folding under pressure from pro-vaccine groups, the media and the drug industry, according to reports.]

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[Film producers later held a news conference and pointed out “Vaxxed” was not an anti-vaxxer movie. Vaxxed went on the big screen at a Premier event in New York City later and had limited showings at other theaters in the city.

Below is the trailer of Vaxxed, followed by a Video review of the NYC Premier showing.]