Less than 10% of people who could benefit from obesity jabs such as Wegovy are able to get them, caution the WHO as it issues its first recommendations on the therapies.
Given more than one billion people worldwide now living with obesity, it is advocating for more widespread and fairer availability to this class of drugs.
Per estimates, in excess of 2,000,000,000 will be obese by 2030 if no action is taken.
"Our latest guidelines acknowledges that excess weight is a chronic disease that can be treated with comprehensive and ongoing care," stated 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, explains the agency.
Skinny Jab Scarcity
Even under the present most favorable scenario, the manufacturing of such drugs might only reach around 100 million people – less than 10% of eligible patients, as stated by the WHO.
The advice encourages countries and companies to increase availability, via strategies including voluntary licensing.
The intellectual property rights on semaglutide – the main ingredient of a leading brand – is set to lapse in a number of countries in 2026.
How Weight-Loss Drugs Work
GLP-1 drugs mimick a body's own hormone to reduce digestion speed, reduce hunger and increase feelings of fullness so individuals reduce food intake.
Patients usually start to lose weight in the initial weeks of starting on the regular doses.
Research points to people may put most of the weight back on after a year of stopping the drug, when their normal hunger resume.
Being above a healthy weight raises your risk for developing medical conditions, including diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and some cancers.
Obesity impacts individuals in countries worldwide and was associated with over three and a half million fatalities worldwide in 2024, as per the health agency.
