Under one in 10 patients who could benefit from weight-loss injections like Wegovy can access them, warns the WHO as it releases its first advice on the medications.
Considering more than one billion individuals worldwide now obese, it is advocating for increased and just availability to this class of drugs.
Based on estimates, over two billion are projected to be living with obesity by 2030 if no action is taken.
"The latest guidance recognises that obesity is a lifelong illness that can be treated with holistic and continuous treatment," remarked its chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Significant expense, insufficient output, and distribution challenges are key hurdles to universal availability to the treatments that can assist patients in reducing considerable weight, notes the body.
Skinny Jab Scarcity
Despite the present most favorable case, the supply of such drugs might only reach approximately 100 million people – fewer than 10% of eligible patients, per the WHO.
The recommendation encourages nations and manufacturers to expand availability, through measures including voluntary licensing.
Exclusive production rights on the active ingredient – the main component of a leading brand – is due to expire in a number of nations in 2026.
How Obesity Drugs Function
GLP-1 drugs mimick a natural hormone to delay gastric emptying, suppress the appetite and enhance the sense of being full so individuals eat less.
People typically start to lose weight after several weeks of beginning the weekly injections.
Research points to people may put most of the weight back on a year later of stopping the medication, as their typical food cravings return.
Being above a healthy weight increases your chance for contracting diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, brain attack, and some malignancies.
Excess weight affects people in all nations and was linked to millions of deaths worldwide in 2024, according to the health agency.
