KUALA LUMPUR, May 25 — The Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force has today reassured all vaccines procured by the government do not contain elements that are haram, or prohibited by Islam.

Following Senior Minister (Defense) Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri’s remark that Sinovac has been deemed halal, or permissible in Islam, by Indonesia, its coordinating minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the former’s statement does not mean other vaccines are not halal.

"What Ismail meant was that the Sinovac vaccine has gotten a certificate by the Indonesian Ulama Council who said that the vaccine is halal.

"This does not mean that the other vaccines contain anything that makes it haram,” he said in a press conference.

"We have done our checks of the contents of the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines and found that they do not contain anything that comes from a pig, for example,” he added.

Yesterday, Ismail —during a visit to Pharmaniaga Life Science Sdn Bhd plant — said that Sinovac was one of a few Covid-19 vaccines that have received halal certification.

He said that the government will be acquiring a total of 8.2 million doses of Sinovac vaccine by the end of June with 3.8 million of them through fill and finish by Pharmaniaga, adding that the Pharmaniaga factory had completed 1,889,800 doses of vaccine for distribution and the overall total vaccine production from the factory is 2,609,800 as at the end of May 2021.

Indonesia had made the declaration on the Chinese vaccine in January based on a plenary session discussing the ingredients and production processes, ahead of the roll-out to the country with the biggest Muslim population in the world.

This comes as Saudi Arabia declared yesterday that pilgrims that aim to perform the Haj in Mecca must only take the Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson or Moderna vaccines.

Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are not part of Malaysia’s vaccine roll-out.