Rome, August 22, 2026 – The parents of Anna Rosa Bartolotta, the 4-year-old girl from the Zen district of Palermo who died of diphtheria, are under investigation for manslaughter. The couple had chosen not to vaccinate their daughter, claiming that a vaccination had caused autism in a cousin.
And today the Prosecutor’s Office hypothesizes that the omission, consisting of the failure to vaccinate against diphtheria, which has been mandatory for years, caused Anna Rosa’s death: hence the charge of manslaughter by omission. Little Anna Rosa, like her four siblings, had never been vaccinated because she was the daughter of no-vax parents. In recent days, the Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office has questioned the hospital doctors as well as the child’s pediatrician.
The autopsy on little Anna Rosa’s body will be performed on Wednesday at the legal medicine institute of the Policlinico.
Check on kindergartens and elementary schools in the area
The juvenile prosecutor’s office has instead opened a civil file to assess the parental responsibility of Anna Rosa’s father and mother and ordered a check on kindergartens and elementary schools in the northern part of the city to verify the presence of other unvaccinated minors.
In recent days, the magistrates have heard from the doctors and the pediatrician who visited the girl, reporting difficulties in immunizing the children of Zen, where the belief that vaccinations cause autism is widespread and leads parents to refuse vaccinations despite them being mandatory.
Cousin positive for diphtheria
Also, the cousin of the little girl, hospitalized at the Children’s Hospital, tested positive for diphtheria. The cousin, who is 4 years old, showed the same symptoms as Anna Rosa but had received the first three vaccination cycles. Therefore, the disease manifested in a much milder form. “He is clinically improving,” said Domenico Cipolla, medical director of the Arnas Civico hospital company.
“He has a fever and a bit of a sore throat, some plaques, basically nothing more than a typical flu syndrome. We also measured the anti-diphtheria immunoglobulins, which are present in good amounts and protective; we are keeping him under observation and isolation and monitoring all clinical functions,” Cipolla added.
The mother’s outburst on social media
Meanwhile, yesterday the mother of little Anna Rosa attacked the healthcare workers who examined her daughter in a social media post, discharging her the first time with a diagnosis of tonsillitis. “The pain is mine and mine alone, but I hope you never have to deal with incompetent doctors.” In the post, the woman states that “incompetent doctors underestimated the case of my daughter when she was taken to the emergency room several times.” She added: “We parents did not mistake diphtheria for tonsillitis” as “the cause of my daughter’s death.”
