ABU DHABI 23 December 2020: UAE’s Ministry of Health and Prevention (MoHAP) yesterday announced the emergency registration of Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid -19 vaccine.
The decision comes in response to a request by Pfizer to approve the emergency registration of the vaccine so that concerned health authorities can import it after fulfilling the international standards and guidelines for the safe and efficient shipping of the vaccine, specially that the US Food and Drug Administration’s reviews have confirmed its safety and efficacy after passing the clinical trials, said official news agency Wam.
Dr. Amin Hussain Al Amiri, Assistant Undersecretary of Public Health Policy & Licensing, said that “authorising the registration of the vaccine comes after Pfizer had submitted all required documents in compliance with the measures and systems in place in the UAE and in accordance with international safety and effectiveness standards.”
Fatwa Council: Permissible to use Coronavirus vaccines
The UAE Fatwa Council, under the chairmanship of Shaykh Abdallah bin Bayyah, has issued a ‘fatwa’ (Islamic ruling) allowing the coronavirus vaccines to be used in compliance with Islamic Sharia’s objectives on the protection of the human body and other relevant Islamic rulings.
This comes in response to growing concerns among Muslims over the halal status of the Covid vaccines and following a request for an advisory opinion addressed by the Minister of Religious Affairs of Malaysia, to the UAE Fatwa Council on the same subject.
“Coronavirus vaccination is classified under preventive medicines for individuals, as recommended by the Islamic faith, particularly in times of pandemic diseases when the healthy happen to be prone to infections due to the high risk of contracting the disease, therefore posing risk to the entire society,” the council explained.
The Fatwa Council added that even though the vaccine in question contains non-halal ingredients banned by Islam, it’s permissible to use it in implementation of the Islamic rule that permits the use of such products in case there are no alternatives.
Highly contagious
The council cited the highly contagious nature of the disease as a justification to use the vaccines owning to the dire consequences the pandemic has inflicted in terms of fatal physical and material damage.
The council added that concerned medical authorities and other competent expertise are the ones authorised to assess the side effects of the vaccine, calling upon all to cooperate with their respective governments to ensure the success of vaccination campaigns and respect for the preventive and precautionary measures taken in this regard.
