WHO Sounds Alert Over Critical Shortage of Weight-Loss Medications
Less than a tenth of individuals who could benefit from weight-loss injections such as Wegovy are able to get them, warns the WHO as it publishes its first advice on the drugs.
Given more than one billion people worldwide currently living with obesity, it is urging broader and more equitable availability to this class of drugs.
Per forecasts, more than two billion are projected to be living with obesity by 2030 without intervention.
"Our latest guidelines acknowledges that obesity is a long-term condition that can be treated with holistic and lifelong treatment," remarked its chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Significant expense, insufficient output, and distribution challenges are major barriers to universal availability to the jabs that can assist patients in reducing considerable weight, explains the agency.
GLP-1 Therapy Scarcity
Even under the current most optimistic outlook, the manufacturing of these medications would only suffice for about 100 million people – fewer than 10% of eligible patients, per the WHO.
The advice urges countries and companies to widen availability, through strategies like patent sharing.
A patent on the active ingredient – the main ingredient of the drug Wegovy – is set to lapse in multiple nations in 2026.
How Weight-Loss Injections Function
The injections imitate a biological compound to slow digestion, curb appetite and boost the sense of being full so people eat less.
Patients commonly start to lose weight after several weeks of starting on the regular doses.
Research suggests users may put most of the weight back on after a year of discontinuing the treatment, when their typical appetite resume.
Being carrying excess weight increases your chance for contracting health problems, like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular issues, brain attack, and certain malignancies.
Excess weight concerns people in countries worldwide and was linked to millions of deaths worldwide in 2024, according to the health agency.
