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Front-line health workers, the elderly, and people with chronic diseases are being prioritised in Lebanon Image caption: Front-line health workers, the elderly, and people with chronic diseases are being prioritised in Lebanon

The World Bank has threatened to suspend financing for Lebanon’s Covid-19 vaccination programme amid allegations that people are receiving shots without registering or waiting their turn.

Lebanon launched the programme on 14 February with 28,000 Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines purchased with some of the $34m (£24m) in aid it has been allocated .

To ensure fair and transparent distribution, the government asked everyone to register with an online platform, whose algorithms prioritise recipients based on agreed criteria. Health workers, the elderly, and people with chronic diseases are meant to be vaccinated first.

However, it was not long before complaints about “violations” emerged in a country where corruption and mismanagement have been blamed for an unprecedented economic crisis and the devastating explosion at Beirut’s port last August.

After several members of parliament were vaccinated on Tuesday, World Bank regional director Saroj Kumar Jha warned of consequences if people were found to be queue jumping.

He added that the World Bank had asked monitors to verify that vaccination centres were adhering to the rules, adding the hashtag “#NoWasta”. “Wasta” is an Arabic term for nepotism or influence.

Parliament’s Secretary-General, Adnan Daher, told the National News Agency that the lawmakers had been registered and that “their turn had come” .