Over 1 billion people could become infected with the coronavirus worldwide unless vulnerable countries are given urgent help, International Rescue Committee (IRC) has warned.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) said financial and humanitarian aid were needed to help slow the global spread of the virus.
IRC said, “fragile countries” such as Afghanistan and Syria needed “urgent funding” to avoid a major outbreak.
There have been more than 3m confirmed cases of Covid-19 worldwide with more than 200,000 deaths, in the US according to Johns Hopkins University.
The IRC’s report, which is based on models and data from the World Health Organization (WHO) and Imperial College London, estimated there could be between 500m and 1bn infections globally.
It also said there could be more than 3m deaths across dozens of conflict-affected and unstable countries.
“The full, devastating and disproportionate weight of this pandemic has yet to be felt in the world’s most fragile and war-torn countries,” he added. “The key now is for donors to urgently put flexible funding behind frontline efforts.
