The World Health Organization and the Vaccine Alliance (GAVI), who have set up a mechanism to distribute vaccines to poor countries, announced Friday that they expect to send the first doses to these countries in the first quarter of 2021.

The Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a press conference that COVAX, the global initiative to equal access to vaccines, "got nearly two billion" doses.