HEALTH MINISTER'S STATEMENT CREATES PUBLIC UNREST: MUI

Jakarta, June 16 (ANTARA) - The health minister's statement that the Indonesian Ulemas Council (MUI) has no right to declare meningitis vaccines for hajj pilgrims as haram (banned in Islam) will create unrest among Muslims, a Muslim cleric said.

"The minister should not have made such a statement," the MUI chairman said in response to the minister's statement on MUI's opinion that the anti-meningitis vaccine was haram because based on a report the vaccine contained swine enzyme.

Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said during a meeting with a women Muslim organization in Yogyakarta over the weekend that MUI might decide that swine enzyme was halal (allowed in Islamic) or haram, but as far as the vaccine was concerned, the institution which had the right and competence to assess its substance was only the health ministry.

However, it was reported that MUI had received the very information on the swine enzyme substance in the meningitis vaccine from the health ministry itself, namely its Advisory Council on Health and Religious Legal Affairs (MPKS).

Amidhan said that MUI had the information from the MPKS which held a meeting with the meningitis vaccine producer. It was learnt from the results of a meeting between MPKS and the vaccine producer Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK), that the vaccine contained swine enzyme. The producer even admitted that the meningitis vaccine contained swine enzyme.

"That is why we say that the vaccine is haram," the MUI chairman said.

MUI has sent a letter to the Saudi government with regard to the requirement for pilgrims to have a meningitis vaccination . The highest Islamic regulating council took the step because all parties involved in the organization of hajj pilgrimage in the country had agreed that the vaccine contained a pig substance.