The coronavirus pandemic has already claimed over half a million lives across the world, with case numbers continuing to rise.
A new report by Oxfam has warned that the hunger crisis worsened by the coronavirus pandemic could potentially kill more people each day than the infection itself.
An estimated 12,000 people per day could die from hunger linked to Covid-19 by the end of the year, Oxfam said. By comparison, the pandemic’s deadliest day so far has been April 17, when 8,890 deaths were recorded.
“The pandemic is the final straw for millions of people already struggling with the impacts of conflict, climate change, inequality and a broken food system that has impoverished millions of food producers and workers,” Oxfam’s Interim Executive Director Chema Vera said in a release.
The new challenges precipitated by the pandemic — led by unemployment — add themselves to long-standing issues worsening global hunger, including wars, climate change and rising inequality.
According to Oxfam, the coronavirus pandemic “has added fuel to the fire of an already growing hunger crisis.”
Oxfam’s briefing singles out 10 extreme hunger hotspots around the world where the pandemic is worsening already critical situations. They are: Yemen, Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Venezuela, the West African Sahel, Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, and Haiti.
Brazil and India are now dealing with the second-largest and third-largest coronavirus outbreaks in the world, dwarfed only by that of the United States. Cases in Brazil have surpassed 1.7 million, and India has over 767,000. The United States broke the threshold of 3 million cases on Wednesday.
