Crisis-hit Lebanon kicks off COVID-19 vaccinations

Crisis-hit Lebanon kicks off COVID-19 vaccinations

BEIRUT “” Lebanon kicked off COVID-19 vaccinations on Sunday with jabs for healthcare workers and the elderly in an inoculation drive it hopes will keep the outbreak in check amid a deepening economic crisis.

The country has been under lockdown since mid-January, after an unprecedented spike in cases blamed on holiday gatherings forced overwhelmed hospitals to turn away patients.

Medical workers and those aged over 75 were the first to receive Pfizer/BioNTech shots at three major Beirut hospitals, a day after a shipment of 28,500 doses arrived at the capital's airport.

The World Bank has allocated $34 million to inoculate an initial two million of Lebanon's 6 million inhabitants.

"Finally there's a glimpse of hope that things will get back to normal," said medical student Dana Chatila, who was waiting in her white lab coat and mask outside the American University Medical Center, where she works in the emergency department.

"It's going to take time of course, but the darkness is ending."

The pandemic has compounded the woes of Lebanese, who are struggling with a dire economic crisis and still reeling from Beirut's massive port blast last summer that killed more than 200 people and destroyed swathes of the capital.

More than half the population lives in