Lebanon received its first batch of COVID-19 vaccines on Saturday with aid from the World Bank, which said it would monitor the inoculation drive to ensure the shots go to those most in need.
About 28,500 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine landed at Beirut airport, the first of 2.1 million doses the health ministry has secured from the company, with arrivals expected in stages throughout the year.
The vaccination program aims to ease the pressure on hospitals, battered by Lebanon's financial crisis and the huge Beirut port explosion in August last year, and now fighting some of the region's highest infection rates.
In its first operation funding the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines, the World Bank reallocated $34 million from an existing health project in Lebanon to help the country launch the vaccination program.