After weeks of stalling, the Health Ministry has finally taken the first step towards speeding up the vaccination campaign in Lebanon, by allowing a Pharmaline, a private Lebanese company, to acquire one million doses of the Russian coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V.

This was made possible by Pharmaline owner Jacques Sarraf who heads the Lebanese Russian Business Council and the Honorary Consul of the Russian Federation in Lebanon. According to Naharnet, the vaccine will be offered at a “very cheap” price of $38 for the two doses and that the money will be paid by companies seeking to vaccinate their employees. Of course, $38 is no longer considered “very cheap” but large companies who can afford it will be able to vaccinate their staff and resume their operations normally.

Lebanon is set to receive an additional 750,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine in May & June and will buy 1.2 Millon shots independently from Astrazeneca-Oxford. As far as the number of people vaccinated so far is concerned, around 100k have received their first shot and barely 10k are fully vaccinated as of last week.