The United Nations (UN) has warned the coronavirus pandemic may lead to “multiple famines of biblical proportions”.

As the number of confirmed infections globally passed 2.5 million, the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) estimated the number of the world’s hungry could nearly double by the end of the year.

WFP executive director David Beasley warned the world was “on the brink of a hunger pandemic” if immediate action was not taken.

He said the countries at greatest risk were those across Africa and the Middle East.

He told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that even before COVID-19 became an issue, he was telling world leaders this year would bring “the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II”.

“We could be facing multiple famines of biblical proportions within a few months,” he said.

Mr Beasley said 821 million people went to bed hungry every night all over the world, 135 million more people were facing “crisis levels of hunger or worse” and a new World Food Program analysis showed that as a result of COVID-19 an additional 130 million people “could be pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of 2020”.

He said WFP was providing food to nearly 100 million people on any given day, including “about 30 million people who literally depend on us to stay alive”.

Mr Beasley, who is recovering from COVID-19, said if those people could not be reached, “300,000 people could starve to death every single day over a three-month period”.

He said that figure did not include increased starvation due to coronavirus.

He warned that in a worst-case scenario “we could be looking at famine in about three dozen countries”.

The WFP warns that beyond malnutrition, a shortage of food will leave those affected with weaker immune systems, making them particularly vulnerable to coronavirus.

–ABC