University of California to require measles shots for all students

University of California students will have to be vaccinated against measles and other diseases under rules that take effect in 2017, the university said on Friday.

Students at all 10 campuses of the University of California will be required to be screened for tuberculosis and vaccinated for measles, mumps, rubella and other diseases under a new health plan set to take effect in 2017.

Beginning in 2017, UC will expand this mandate, it said in a statement. All incoming students also will have to documentation showing they have had tuberculosis screening and four other vaccines.

The university now requires students to be inoculated against only hepatitis B. The new rules will require vaccination for measles, tuberculosis, chickenpox, whooping cough and meningitis.

"The University of California is committed to protecting the health and wellbeing of our students," Mary Knudtson, chair of the UC Immunization Policy Committee, said in a statement.

The new vaccination requirements were based on recommendations from the California Department of Public Health.

Recent outbreaks of whooping cough and measles, long thought eradicated, led to the introduction this week of a bill in the Legislature that would remove the state's personal-belief exemption, and another in Congress that wouldrequire vaccinations for children in Head Start preschools nationwide.