The Saudi government's policy to tighten the acceptance of pilgrims in 2021 has an impact on Indonesia's inability to be part of the annual agenda. Thus, two years in a row no Pilgrims from Indonesia were sent to the holy land in this annual service.

Vice Chairman of the House of Representatives Sufmi Dasco Ahmad said that this info was directly obtained about this year Indonesia did not get a quota of pilgrim departures for 2021.

"While we do not have to discuss (vaccines) first. Because of the latest information that we hear that we can not get hajj quota," said Dasco, Monday (13/5/2021).

"Now this is a lesson for us so that about this vaccine we will pay more attention so that things do not happen like this," he explained.

The kingdom is indeed tightening the acceptance of pilgrims for this year with pilgrims who will be accepted, namely pilgrims who have received injections of the Covid-19 vaccine from vaccines that have received an Emergency Use Listing Procedure (EUL) from who.

The vaccines in question are Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson &Johnson and AstraZeneca.

While Indonesia currently only uses AstraZeneca, it is also in limited quantities. While the most widely used vaccine in Indonesia, namely Sinovac, is still not getting EUL from WHO.

As a vaccine distributor appointed by the government, PT Bio Farma (Persero) said Indonesia needs further diplomacy with the Government of Saudi Arabia related to vaccination of prospective pilgrims. Because until now vaccines used in Indonesia en masse still have not obtained permission from this kingdom.

President Director of Bio Farma Honesti Basyir said diplomacy is currently being conducted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Ministry of Health (Kemenkes), Ministry of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) and the Ministry of Religion (Kemenag) for such efforts.

"This Saudi government policy will appear only a month back, they provide a vaccine policy that they love approval for recipients can enter the new Saudi vaccine from America and Europe such as Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. And Indonesia has a vaccine that meets AstraZeneca's criteria," Honesti said in RDP with Commission VI of the House of Representatives, Tuesday (5/25/2021).

This is also in line with Sinovac's efforts to immediately obtain an Emergency Use Listing Procedure (EUL) from WHO, at the latest will be obtained in the second week of June 2021.

Nevertheless, Honesti said there is still one option that Indonesia can do so that its pilgrims can get permission to enter Saudi. Namely by giving priority to prospective Indonesian pilgrims can get priority injections from AstraZeneca.

"Stay may be arranged for pilgrims who may have had sinovac vaccine later we discuss with BPOM, Komnas KIPI [Post-Immunization Follow-up Event] and also ITAGI [Indonesian Technical Advisory Group on Immunization] whether they can be given AstraZeneca vaccine despite getting Sinovac vaccine to be a requirement. But this is certainly a certain consideration by the experts, we only provide options," he explained.