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As the bell rang on a recent morning at an elementary school here and pupils filled the classrooms, anxious adults crowded the corridors outside. It was vaccination day, but many parents in this North Sumatra village did not want their children immunized with a new measles-rubella (MR) vaccine. Some told the teacher their children were at home, not feeling well. Others were there to make sure their kids didn't get the jab. They whispered the reason with disgust: The vaccine "contains elements of pork." By the time the vaccination team left, only six out of 38 students had been immunized.
Millions of parents around Indonesia have eschewed the vaccine in recent months, after Islamic clerics declared the MR vaccine "haram," or forbidden under Islamic law because pig components are used in its manufacturing. Vaccine coverage has plummeted as a result, alarming public health experts who worry that the world's largest Muslim-majority country could see new waves of measles and more miscarriages and birth defects resulting from rubella infections during pregnancy.
