The economic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic could push as many as 86 million more children into poverty by the end of 2020, a joint study by Save the Children and Unicef has showed.

That would bring the total number of children affected by poverty worldwide to 672m, an increase of 15 per cent over last year, the two aid agencies said in a statement, according to AFP.

"The scale and depth of financial hardship among families threatens to roll back years of progress in reducing child poverty and to leave children deprived of essential services," Unicef executive director Henrietta Fore is quoted as saying in the statement.