Less than 10% of people eligible to benefit from obesity jabs such as Wegovy can access them, warns the WHO as it issues its initial recommendations on the medications.
Considering in excess of 1,000,000,000 individuals worldwide currently living with obesity, it is urging more widespread and fairer availability to this class of drugs.
Per projections, in excess of 2,000,000,000 will be obese by 2030 without intervention.
"The latest guidelines acknowledges that obesity is a long-term condition that can be treated with comprehensive and continuous treatment," remarked its chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Significant expense, insufficient output, and supply-chain constraints are significant barriers to universal availability to the injections that can aid individuals in losing considerable body mass, notes the agency.
GLP-1 Therapy Supply Crisis
Even in the present most favorable scenario, the production of such drugs could only cover around 100 million people – fewer than 10% of those who need them, per the WHO.
The advice calls on countries and companies to increase access, via strategies like voluntary licensing.
Exclusive production rights on the active ingredient – the primary component of Novo Nordisk's Wegovy – is due to expire in multiple countries in 2026.
How Obesity Injections Operate
GLP-1 drugs imitate a natural hormone to delay gastric emptying, suppress the appetite and increase the sense of being full so users consume fewer calories.
Patients typically see weight reduction in the initial weeks of starting on the weekly injections.
Evidence indicates people may put most of the weight back on after a year of halting the drug, as their normal appetite return.
Being above a healthy weight elevates your chance for contracting health problems, including diabetes, heart disease, brain attack, and specific malignancies.
Obesity affects individuals in countries worldwide and was associated with millions of fatalities worldwide in 2024, per the health agency.
