Covid-19 in Lebanon: the World Bank will distribute vaccines by early February
In Lebanon, the positivity rate is 17% in January 2021, while the World Health Organization indicates a maximum rate of 5%.
AP - Bilal Hussein
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
This is the first operation financed by the World Bank to help a country immunize its population.
In addition to the violent economic crisis it is going through, Lebanon is facing an unprecedented increase in the number of contaminations and infections with Covid-19.
The government decided on Thursday to extend its strict confinement by two weeks.
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Thirty-four million dollars is the amount released by the World Bank to provide vaccines against Covid-19 to more than 2 million Lebanese.
Because the increase in contamination is unprecedented in the country.
Since the start of 2021, Lebanon has recorded 5,500 new cases every day.
Currently, the positivity rate is 17%, while the World Health Organization indicates a maximum rate of 5%.
Despite the fifteen-day extension of a strict confinement
imposed on January 14
, the country is unable to reduce the number of contaminations and deaths.
The health crisis comes on top of the economic crisis that began in the fall of 2019. For decades, it has been the worst recession facing Lebanon.
In 2020, the GDP fell by 19.5%, while the rate of inflation exceeds 133% and 45% of the population lives below the extreme poverty line.
Help for the poorest
In such a context, the World Bank approved, on January 12, emergency aid of $ 246 million in the form of cash transfers to directly help the poorest Lebanese.
The aid announced this Thursday for the purchase of vaccines is part of a more global health project of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (Bird) in the amount of 95.8 million dollars.
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Read also: Coronavirus in Lebanon: a law to regulate the importation of the vaccine
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Lebanon
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