INDONESIA ISLAMIC COUNCIL AIMS FOR HALAL RULING BEFORE MASS VACCINATION

Thu 07 January 2021:

Indonesia’s highest Muslim clerical council aims to issue a ruling on whether a vaccine is halal, or permissible under Islam, before the country is due to start a mass inoculation programme using a Chinese vaccine next week.

The world’s largest Muslim-majority country plans to launch vaccinations on Janaury 13 after obtaining 3 million doses from China’s Sinovac Biotech.

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Controversy over whether vaccines adhere to Islamic principles has stymied public health responses before, including in 2018, when the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) issued a fatwa declaring that a measles vaccine was forbidden under Islam.

“Our target is before first injections start, the fatwa has to come out then,” said Muti Arintawati, an official at MUI in charge of analysing food and drugs to assess whether they are halal.