The world was predicted to suffer a famine of “biblical proportions” as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. This opinion was expressed by the head of the world food program (WFP) David Beasley in an interview with TASS.
According to him, the organization needs almost five billion dollars to implement humanitarian activities to mitigate the consequences of the pandemic in the next six months.
“All the data we have, including the WFP forecast of an 80 per cent increase in the number of people who are food insecure — from 140 million before the pandemic to 270 million by the end of this year — point to a real catastrophe. We are facing the risk of a famine of biblical proportions, ” Beasley warned.
He also added that the world’s hunger is already “at a sky-high level”, and called for immediate action so that” children do not suffer from the consequences of malnutrition ” and people do not die.
Among other things, Beasley called the main task of WFP — to provide food to 138 million people in 2020 and called it the largest humanitarian operation in history. To implement the aid, $ 4.9 billion will be needed in the next six months. This amount is necessary to “continue to conduct humanitarian activities in 83 countries”, which for many of these States is “the only hope for survival”.
The number of victims of coronavirus in the world has exceeded 800 thousand. According to the information of 22 August, on the planet died 803 201 people. The total number of infected reached 23,120,216, and another 15.71 million were cured.