Under a tenth of people that would benefit from obesity jabs like Wegovy are able to get them, caution the global health agency as it releases its inaugural recommendations on the drugs.
With over a billion individuals worldwide currently living with obesity, it is urging more widespread and fairer availability to these injectable treatments.
According to estimates, more than two billion could be obese by 2030 without intervention.
"The new guidelines affirms that obesity is a long-term condition that can be addressed with comprehensive and lifelong treatment," said the agency's head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
High costs, insufficient output, and supply-chain constraints are key hurdles to broad availability to the injections that can help people shift significant weight, notes the body.
Weight-Loss Drug Supply Crisis
Despite the present most favorable scenario, the production of GLP-1 therapies might only reach about 100 million people – less than 10% of the global need, according to the health organization.
The recommendation encourages nations and manufacturers to widen availability, by measures such as licensing agreements.
Exclusive production rights on a key compound – the core ingredient of Novo Nordisk's Wegovy – is due to expire in multiple countries in 2026.
How Obesity Jabs Work
These medications imitate a biological compound to delay gastric emptying, reduce hunger and enhance the sense of being full so users reduce food intake.
People commonly start to lose weight in the initial weeks of commencing the weekly injections.
Research suggests users may see weight return within a year of stopping the medication, when their typical food cravings return.
Being carrying excess weight increases your likelihood for developing diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, brain attack, and certain malignancies.
Excess weight concerns people in every country and was linked to 3.7 million deaths worldwide in 2024, per the WHO.
