Lebanon vaccine roll-out neglects refugees, migrants: Human Rights Watch

Lebanon’s vaccine roll-out is at risk of marginalising refugees and migrant workers who make up a third of the crisis-hit country’s population, Human Rights Watch warned on Tuesday.
“With one in three people in Lebanon a refugee or migrant, a third of the population risks being left behind in the vaccination plan,” said HRW researcher Nadia Hardman.
“The government needs to invest in targeted outreach to build trust with long-marginalised communities or the COVID-19 vaccination effort is doomed to fail.” 
In February, Lebanon started a mass vaccination campaign that Health Minister Hamad Hassan said would cover everyone living in the country regardless of their nationality.
It aims to cover 80 per cent of the population by the end of the year but the rollout has been slow.
Only 233,934 doses have been administered as of April 5 mostly due to the limited quantity of vaccines available, HRW said.
“Only 2.86 per cent of those vaccinated and 5.36 per cent of those registered to receive vaccinations are non-Lebanese.”

More than 19,900 Palestinian refugees and health workers and 6,701 Syrian refugees are eligible in the first phase of the vaccine roll-out, HRW said.
Citing data...