Less than 10% of patients who could benefit from weight-loss injections like Wegovy have access to them, warns the WHO as it issues its initial guidance on the therapies.
With more than one billion individuals worldwide currently living with obesity, it is calling for increased and just access to GLP-1 medication.
Per estimates, in excess of 2,000,000,000 will be obese by 2030 without intervention.
"Our new guidance recognises that obesity is a long-term condition that can be addressed with holistic and lifelong care," remarked its chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Significant expense, insufficient output, and logistical bottlenecks are major hurdles to widespread availability to the injections that can assist patients in reducing significant body mass, says the organization.
GLP-1 Therapy Scarcity
Even under the current most favorable scenario, the production of such drugs might only reach around 100 million people – under 10% of those who need them, according to the health organization.
The advice calls on governments and firms to increase access, via measures including voluntary licensing.
Exclusive production rights on a key compound – the primary component of Novo Nordisk's Wegovy – is set to lapse in several countries in 2026.
How Obesity Injections Function
These medications imitate a natural hormone to slow digestion, curb appetite and increase feelings of fullness so people reduce food intake.
Individuals typically begin shedding pounds in the initial weeks of starting on the once-weekly jabs.
Studies points to people may put most of the weight back on after a year of stopping the treatment, when their typical food cravings resume.
Being carrying excess weight raises your risk for developing health problems, like diabetes, heart disease, brain attack, and specific cancers.
Excess weight concerns individuals in all nations and was linked to 3.7 million deaths worldwide in 2024, according to the health agency.
