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June 21, 2002
INTERNATIONAL IMMUNIZATION NEWS
"'Non-Halal' Vaccine is Okay, Says KL"
Singapore Straits Times (straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/home)
(06/20/02)
Muslim pilgrims to Mecca received assurances from the Malaysian Islamic Authorities earlier this week regarding the use of a particular type of meningitis vaccine that is required of them prior to undertaking their pilgrimages, Haj and Umrah. The Saudi government implemented new mandates since the outbreak of a new strain of meningitis, instructing that the pilgrims be inoculated with the Quadrivalent Meningococcal A C Y W-135 vaccine. The "non-halal" vaccine is controversial from the Islamic perspective, as it is derived from cows and pigs. After complaints were received from the Muslim Consumers' Association, de facto religious minister Datuk Abdul Hamid Zainal Abidin assured him that under the situation of life and death, Islam did allow the use of a non-halal vaccine. He pointed out that there are two versions of the vaccine, one halal and one non-halal, but that some clinics where Muslims may have received their inoculations may have received the wrong one in error. Dr. Maamor Osman, the secretary-general of the Muslim Consumers Association, said giving the non-halal vaccine to Muslims prior to their pilgrimage to Haj, was "tantamount to tainting Muslims who are going to the Holy Land."
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