OSLO: Accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in a ceremony held online because of the coronavirus, the World Food Programme (WFP) warned Thursday of a "hunger pandemic" it said could be worse than Covid-19.

"Because of so many wars, climate change, the widespread use of hunger as a political and military weapon, and a global health pandemic that makes all of that exponentially worse, 270 million people are marching toward starvation," WFP executive director David Beasley said. "Failure to address their needs will cause a hunger pandemic which will dwarf the impact of Covid," he said, removing his facemask to make his remarks broadcast from the WFP's headquarters in Rome.

The largest humanitarian organisation fighting famine, the UN agency founded in 1961 feeds tens of millions of people each year - 97 million in 2019 - across all continents.

The WFP was honoured with the Nobel for its efforts "to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict", committee chairwoman Berit Reiss-Andersen said when she announced the winner on October 9. With nationalist tendencies taking hold across the globe, the WFP "represents exactly the kind of international cooperation and commitment that the world is in dire need of today," Reiss-Andersen said Thursday, speaking from a deserted Nobel Institute in Oslo.

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced Nobel officials to scale back the traditional festivities to a bare minimum, both in Oslo where the Peace Prize is announced and presented, and in Stockholm, which hosts the prizes for medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and economics.

Cancellations hit the lavish banquets and glittering ceremonies attended by distinguished guests and royals in tiaras, replaced by more austere events mostly online. Because of the exceptional circumstances, the Nobel gold medal and diploma were sent to Rome in a diplomatic pouch.