JAKARTA -- Indonesian Ulema Council, the country's top Islamic body, has deemed China's Sinovac COVID-19 vaccines permissible under Islamic law, giving a boost to the government as it prepares to start a mass vaccination program next week.
The council, known as MUI, announced on Friday that the vaccines developed by China's Sinovac Biotech are "holy and halal" after a meeting of its Halal Certification Commission. The decision comes on the same day as the archipelago nation registered its highest ever daily increase in COVID-19 cases, and could prove to be an important step in a country where religion has clashed with vaccination attempts in the past due to jabs often containing porcine content.
