The Global Health Body Sounds Concern Over Acute Scarcity of Weight-Loss Jabs
Under 10% of individuals who could benefit from weight-loss injections such as Wegovy have access to them, states the global health agency as it issues its initial recommendations on the drugs.
With over a billion individuals worldwide now living with obesity, it is calling for more widespread and fairer access to GLP-1 medication.
According to estimates, more than two billion are projected to be living with obesity by 2030 if no action is taken.
"Our latest guidelines acknowledges that excess weight is a chronic disease that can be managed with holistic and ongoing treatment," said the agency's head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
High costs, insufficient output, and distribution challenges are significant obstacles to broad availability to the injections that can help people shift substantial body mass, explains the agency.
Weight-Loss Drug Shortage
Even in the present best projected case, the manufacturing of GLP-1 therapies could only cover around 100 million people – under 10% of eligible patients, as stated by the health organization.
The advice urges governments and firms to widen access, through strategies like patent sharing.
The intellectual property rights on a key compound – the primary ingredient of Novo Nordisk's Wegovy – is set to lapse in multiple nations in 2026.
How Weight-Loss Injections Work
GLP-1 drugs mimick a natural hormone to slow digestion, reduce hunger and enhance the sense of being full so users eat less.
Individuals commonly see weight reduction in the initial weeks of beginning the regular doses.
Studies points to patients may put most of the weight back on after a year of halting the drug, because their normal food cravings come back.
Being overweight or obese raises your chance for developing diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular issues, stroke, and certain malignancies.
Excess weight impacts people in every country and was linked to millions of fatalities worldwide in 2024, per the WHO.
