Lebanon Registers COVID-19 Vaccine By China's Sinopharm For Emergency Use

Faizan Hashmi Published March 02, 2021 | 01:30 AM

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 02nd March, 2021) Lebanon's Ministry of Public Health has granted an emergency use authorization to the inactivated coronavirus vaccine by Chinese state-owned pharmaceutical group Sinopharm, the Lebanese government's news agency NNA reported on Monday.

The authorization was granted by Health Minister Hamad Hassan, according to the report.

"At the request of the Lebanese side, the Chinese government decided to donate 50,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine to Lebanon to help it fight the coronavirus pandemic," Chinese Ambassador to Lebanon Wang Kejian said on Twitter.

Lebanon will be receiving vaccines both from its direct contracts with producers and via the global COVAX facility. Other COVID-19 vaccines registered by the Lebanese government include the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and Russia's Sputnik V vaccine. The country also has an early access deal with Johnson and Johnson, but their vaccine has not been approved globally yet.

As of Monday, Lebanon reported just over 376,000 COVID-19 cases, including over 4,700 deaths and 294,000 recoveries.