The Italian National Institute of Health (ISS) has confirmed that samples from the child who died recently at the Children's Hospital in Palermo are positive for diphtheria.

"The tests on the samples received from Cristina Benfratelli's civic health center have tested positive for Corynebacterium diphtheriae and detected the gene for the toxin responsible for respiratory diphtheria," which caused the little girl's death, the ISS announced.

The tragedy is thought to be due to the child's failure to be vaccinated, at her parents' request. In this regard, the Institute itself points out that thanks to diphtheria vaccination programs since the 1970s, as reported by ISTAT, Italy has gone from 2,000 deaths per year in children up to age 5 to zero deaths from the 1970s to 2015. The ISS also points out that immunization against diphtheria, contained in the mandatory hexavalent vaccine, is a safe and effective vaccination that, from 1939 to 2015, has prevented approximately 2 million cases each year, as estimated by an Italian study.

(Unioneonline)