Yemeni displaced people are seen at a camp on the outskirts of Sanaa, Yemen, Nov. 26, 2019. More than three million Yemenis displaced by civil war are struggling to survive this harsh winter. TO GO WITH "Feature: Displaced Yemenis face hunger, severe frost as winter arrives" (Photo by Mohammed Mohammed/Xinhua)

The COVID-19 pandemic could almost double the number of people suffering acute food insecurity to more than a quarter of a billion by the end of this year, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has warned.

Acute food insecurity is when lack of food puts a person's life or livelihood in immediate danger. It is more severe than chronic hunger, which is when a person is unable to consume enough food to maintain a normal, active lifestyle, according to the WFP.

Unless swift action is taken, the economic impact of COVID-19 could cause the number of people experiencing acute food insecurity to rise from 135 million in 2019 to 265 million in 2020, according to WFP projections.

"COVID-19 is potentially catastrophic for millions who are already hanging by a thread," WFP senior economist Arif Husain said in an April 21 statement.

"It is a hammer blow for millions more, who can only eat if they earn a wage. Lockdowns and global economic recession have already decimated their nest eggs. It only takes one more shock -- like COVID-19 -- to push them over the edge. We must collectively act now to mitigate the impact of this global catastrophe."

In 2019, the key drivers of acute food insecurity were conflicts (77 million people), weather extremes (34 million) and economic turbulence (24 million), according to the recent "Global Report on Food Crises," published by the WFP and 15 other humanitarian and development partners.

Last year, 10 countries accounted for 65 percent of the worldwide population experiencing food crises: Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Nigeria, South Sudan, Syria, the Sudan, Venezuela and Yemen, according to the WFP "Global Report".

The report also showed that at the close of 2019, 135 million people across 55 countries and territories experienced acute food insecurity, while 75 million children were stunted and another 17 million suffered from wasting.

The economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic was also on the agenda at an online briefing organized by the United Nations Security Council on April 21, where United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director General Qu Dongyu told participants that coherent action is needed to pull millions back from the brink.

The FAO chief stressed that it is impossible to ignore the impacts of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on the food security of the world's most vulnerable populations, and assured participants that the FAO is working to reduce the risk of the pandemic disrupting food systems and causing a global food crisis.

"We are committed to rising to this challenge and we have mobilized our organizations in ways not seen since the foundation of the UN," he stressed.

The "Global Report on Food Crises" was put together by the Global Network against Food Crises, an international alliance of UN, governmental and non-governmental agencies working to address the root causes of extreme hunger.

More than half (73 million) of the 135 million people covered by the report live in Africa, 43 million live in the Middle East and Asia, and 18.5 million live in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The WFP's own programs offer a lifeline to almost 100 million vulnerable people globally.