Durian. Covid-19 vaccine from Chinese pharmaceutical firm Sinovac has fulfilled the requirement of halal or lawful according to Islam, an official from Indonesia’s Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) said on Nov.26.
About 85 percent of Indonesians are Muslims, therefore, halal certification for the vaccine will become the most crucial.
“According to quality aspect based on inspection that has been done, we can conclude that the halal requirement has been fulfilled according to the standard of good medicine,” Penny Kusumastuti Lukito, head of BPOM said in Jakarta.
She explained, the research team which consists of BPOM, Indonesia’s Ulema Council (MUI) and the Health Ministry has visited Sinovac factory in Beijing, China, in November. Besides halal aspect, the team concluded that the quality and safety-wise from this vaccines is good.
Meanwhile, in terms of efficacy, through one month of examination data from phase three of clinical trial in Bandung, West Java, showing that the Sinovac vaccine resulted immunity to the body of volunteers.
However, to issue an emergency permit for the use of the vaccine, BPOM must use data from three months of interim observation. In addition, data from clinical trials in Indonesia will be combined with other countries’ data trials, such as from Brazil.
