Lebanon’s vaccination campaign stumbles at launch
As politicians skip the line to receive their coronavirus vaccine, questions arise about the quantity of vaccine doses Lebanon has and will receive and if it’s enough to inoculate the local and refugee population.
On Feb. 14, a year after Public Health Minister Hamad Hassan announced the first coronavirus case in Lebanon, his ministry launched the Lebanon National Deployment and Vaccination Plan.
Lebanon has recorded 359,320 cases of the virus, with 4,446 deaths, according to the World Health Organization figures.
But no sooner had the vaccination plan been announced that scandals began to erupt. On Feb. 19, the Health Ministry said it had halted accreditation for the Rayak Hospital in the town of Baalbek (60 kilometers, or 27 miles, from Beirut) as a COVID-19 vaccination center due to “its violations of the priorities and standards set in the national vaccination plan.” The ministry’s decision came after the publication of photos of citizens receiving their vaccinations before their turn arrived.
On Feb. 23, reports emerged that a number of parliamentarians had been inoculated in parliament, not in a designated center accredited by the Health Ministry. The 16 members of parliament were also accused of jumping the line despite prioritization for medical health workers and the elderly in the first stage of the vaccination drive. The World Bank threatened to suspend its funding for Lebanon’s vaccination campaign over these violations.
