Fewer than 10% of individuals who could benefit from obesity jabs such as Wegovy can access them, caution the World Health Organization as it issues its initial advice on the therapies.
Considering more than one billion people worldwide now obese, it is urging broader and more equitable availability to these injectable treatments.
Based on projections, more than two billion will be obese by 2030 without intervention.
"The new guidelines recognises that excess weight is a lifelong illness that can be managed with holistic and lifelong treatment," said the agency's head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Substantial prices, insufficient output, and logistical bottlenecks are major hurdles to broad availability to the treatments that can assist patients in reducing considerable body mass, says the organization.
Weight-Loss Drug Shortage
Even in the present best projected outlook, the supply of such drugs could only cover around 100 million people – less than 10% of eligible patients, per the health organization.
The advice encourages countries and companies to widen availability, via measures like patent sharing.
Exclusive production rights on the active ingredient – the core ingredient of Novo Nordisk's Wegovy – is set to lapse in multiple countries in 2026.
How Weight-Loss Drugs Function
GLP-1 drugs replicate a body's own hormone to delay gastric emptying, suppress the appetite and enhance the sense of being full so users eat less.
People commonly start to lose weight after several weeks of beginning the once-weekly jabs.
Studies indicates people may put most of the weight back on after a year of stopping the medication, because their usual food cravings come back.
To be above a healthy weight increases your likelihood for experiencing diseases, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, brain attack, and certain cancers.
Excess weight concerns individuals in all nations and was associated with 3.7 million fatalities worldwide in 2024, according to the health agency.
