“We are really not expecting to see widespread vaccination until the middle of next year,” Harris told a UN briefing in Geneva. “This phase 3 must take longer because we need to see how truly protective the vaccine is and we also need to see how safe it is.”

The pandemic will push 96 million people into extreme poverty by 2021, 47 million of whom are women and girls. This will increase the total number of women and girls living in extreme poverty to 435 million, with projections showing that this number will not revert to pre-pandemic levels until 2030, the UN agencies said.