A senior World Bank official praised on Thursday Lebanon's program to fight the coronavirus pandemic, despite what he said were problems in its early phase as the country remains embroiled in political infighting and lacks a fully functioning government.
“Despite the problems in the beginning, today we see the project is going in the right direction,” said Ferid Belhaj, the World Bank’s vice president for the Middle East and North Africa.
The World Bank has been a major financier of Lebanon’s coronavirus campaign. It has also financed the country’s vaccination program, the first World Bank-financed operation to fund the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines, to provide for over 2 million individuals.
Lebanon has successfully managed to curb the second surge in coronavirus infections that had overwhelmed the health sector since the start of the year. Health authorities imposed a series of lockdowns while a vaccination campaign kicked off in February.
So far about 10% of Lebanon’s 6 million have been inoculated. Efforts are underway to ramp that up.
