Young girls practice ballet dance in a class wearing protective face masks as protocols and precautions to avoid the Covid-19 coronavirus infection at the Namarina ballet school in Jakarta on March 19, 2021. - AFP
JAKARTA, March 20 (dpa): Indonesia can start using 1.1 million doses of the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca, after its distribution in the country was delayed because of concerns about blood clot cases in Europe, the country's drug agency has announced.
"The benefits of giving the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine outweigh the risk, so that the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine can be used," the Food and Drug Control Agency said on its website.
It said the vaccine should be used with caution for people with the low-platelet condition thrombocytopenia and blood-clotting disorders.
Several European countries also announced they would restart vaccinations with the AstraZeneca jab after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) deemed it "safe and effective."
Meanwhile, the Indonesian Council of Ulema, the country's semi-official authority on Islam, said that the AstraZeneca vaccine was haram, or forbidden under Islamic law, because it contains an element derived from pigs, porcine trypsin, but it is permissible for Muslims to receive because of the emergency situation.
"There are not enough halal vaccines to support our goal to achieve herd immunity," said Asrorun Naim Sholeh, the head of the council's fatwa commission. Halal means permissible under Islamic law.
"Muslims have an obligation to participate in the government's Covid-19 vaccination programme," he added.
Indonesia has recorded more than 1.4 million coronavirus cases, the highest caseload in South-East Asia, with nearly 40,000 deaths.
On record, the Covid-19 cases in Indonesia rose by 5,656 within one day to 1,455,788, with the death toll adding by 1o8 to 39,447, the Health Ministry said on Saturday (March .
According to the ministry, 5,760 more people were discharged from hospitals, bringing the total number of recovered patients to 1,284,725
The virus has spread to all the country's 34 provinces. - dpa
