Gov’t to Use Sinovac COVID-19 Vaccine as Booster
Sinovac vaccine (Photo by: PR of Cabinet Secretariat/Oji)
Following Ruling of the Supreme Court Number 31P/HUM/2022 on recommendation to supply halal vaccines for national vaccination program, Ministry of Health has announced that Sinovac vaccine will be used as a COVID-19 booster shot.
“Therefore, for those who are comfortable to use Sinovac vaccine, we provide an opportunity to use the vaccine as vaccine booster,” Ministry of Health’s COVID-19 Vaccination Spokesperson Siti Nadia Tarmizi said as quoted on the official website of Ministry of Health, Tuesday (04/26).
For the record, Sinovac vaccine has obtained halal recommendation from the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) through Fatwa of the MUI Number 2 of 2021, while Sinopharm vaccine for Gotong Royong vaccination (vaccination in mutual cooperation) mechanism has obtained halal fatwa from the MUI through Fatwa of the MUI Number 9 of 2022.
Four other COVID-19 vaccines have also obtained emergency use authorization (EUA) from the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM), namely AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna, and Janssen.
The use of various types of vaccines allows the people to decide which vaccine to use in accordance with their health condition.
“Vaccines that have been widely circulated in Indonesia are also vaccines that are used in other Muslim countries, such as United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Pakistan, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Iran, Egypt, Palestine, Kuwait, Morocco, and Bahrain, and it is proven that COVID-19 cases in those Muslim countries have been under control as of now,” Nadia said.
As part of the preparation of transition from pandemic to endemic, the Government continues to accelerate vaccination rate. Based on the data from Ministry of Health, as of April 25, the coverage of first-dose vaccination was Rp198.98 million doses or 95.54 percent of the target, that of the second-dose vaccination was 164.06 million doses or 78.78 percent of the target, and the coverage of booster vaccination was only 35.26 million doses or 16.93 percent of the target. (PR of Ministry of Health/UN) (DH/MMB)
The official website of Ministry of Health can be accessed through this link.
