India likely to vaccinate 60-70% adults by late 2022, most of Africa to wait for COVID-19 vaccine till 2023: Report

The projection is in accordance with the recent apprehensions raised by the United Nations, which warned of "unequal access" to vaccines due to the rich-poor divide among nations.

"More than 85 poor countries will not have widespread access to coronavirus vaccines before 2023," the report claimed.

The only exception in the African continent is South Africa, which is expected to vaccinate most of its adult population by mid-2022.

Countries in Asia, including Vietnam, South Korea and Japan, are also expected to complete vaccination among 60-70 percent of their population by the above timeframe.

The countries to complete mass vaccination at the earliest are expected to be the US, Canada, Russia, the UK and most of the European countries. They are likely to inoculate up to 70 percent of their adult population by late 2021.

The criteria taken into account by the EIU researchers, while making the global vaccination timeline projection, include supply deals, production constraints, vaccine hesitancy, the size of the population, and the availability of healthcare workers.

The report stresses on the rich-poor divide to highlight the disparity in global vaccine distribution. The access to vaccines would be earlier in countries with higher economic resources, as compared to the developing and underdeveloped world.

"The contrast between rich countries and poorer ones is stark. Most developing countries will not have widespread access to the shots before 2023 at the earliest," said EIU Global Forecasting Director Agathe Demarais.

"Some of these countries—particularly poorer ones with a young demographic profile—may well lose the motivation to distribute vaccines, especially if the disease has spread widely or if the associated costs prove too high," Demarais added.

The first country to issue emergency use authorisation for COVID-19 vaccine was the UK, where drug regulators approved the Pfizer-BioNtech candidate in December.

The UK, as of January 29, recorded the highest vaccination rate, with 11.67 doses being administered per 100 people in the country.

After Pfizer, the Moderna and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines were also approved by an array of developed and developing nations.

Two Indian vaccines - Covishield and Covaxin - were given the nod by the country's drug regulator last month. After launching the world's largest immunisation drive on January 16, India has so far vaccinated over 3.9 million frontline workers.

The country's vaccine diplomacy has been lauded, as India has won global praise for exporting vaccine doses to nearly a dozen countries, including Brazil, Morocco, Bhutan, Myanmar, Seychelles, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Kuwait, among others.

"Vaccine diplomacy will play a role in determining which countries get access to a vaccine in the coming months," the EIU report said.