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Joko Widodo, president of Indonesia, the fourth most populous country in the world, announced last week that the covid-19 vaccine will be free for its 267 million inhabitants.
Despite this gift, there is a reticent sector of the population. The reservations do not refer to the efficacy of the vaccine, but to whether it respects certain religious standards.
Many vaccines contain ingredients of animal origin, namely pork gelatin, the consumption of which is prohibited by various religious groups. According to the Associated Press, this “raises concerns about the possibility of interrupting vaccination campaigns.”
In September 2018, when officials from the Indonesian Ministry of Health went to the island of Sulawesi during a vaccination campaign against measles and rubella, they were greeted by the natives armed with knives.
“Some nurses were threatened with machetes because the parents said they did not want to vaccinate their children, which is haram [termo usado no Islão para se referir a qualquer coisa que é proibida pela fé]”Said the deputy head of the presidential office, Yanuar Nugroho.
Pork jelly is not used by chance. This ingredient is used to ensure the stability of vaccines so that they remain safe and effective during storage and transportation.
Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca have ensured that their COVID-19 vaccines do not contain pork products, but many other pharmaceuticals that will feed populations with a large percentage of Muslims, such as Indonesia, have yet to comment. on the matter.
This is an important dilemma for religious communities such as Orthodox Jews and Muslims. “There is a difference of opinion among Islamic experts regarding the consumption of something like pork gelatin that has undergone a rigorous chemical transformation,” British Islamic Medical Association secretary general Salman Waqar told the AP. “In this case, will you still consider yourself religiously impure?”
The news agency quotes University of Sydney professor Harunor Rashid, who explained that the broad consensus of this discussion is that vaccines should be allowed under Islamic law, as their non-administration can cause “a greater evil.”
According to Rabbi David Stav, director of Tzohar, an Israeli organization of more than 800 Orthodox religious Zionist rabbis, Jewish law “prohibits eating pork or using pork when it is a natural way to eat it,” as in this case “injected into the Body”. and it is not eaten by mouth, “there should be no problem, especially when it comes to curing a disease,” he told the AP.
If the population continues to believe that they cannot receive the vaccine, this could result in a “disaster,” explained Rashid, so entities in Indonesia, the country with the largest Muslim community in the world, are doing everything possible to ensure that the population is well informed about this problem.
Earlier this month, the main Muslim clerical body in Indonesia, the Indonesian Council of Ulemá’s Halal Products Assurance Agency, announced that it would issue a specific religious certification for the experimental covid-19 vaccine developed by the Chinese laboratory Sinovac Biotech.
To set an example, the President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, announced that he would be the first person in his country to receive the covid-19 vaccine.
