Fake batches of Novo Nordisk’s diabetes drug Ozempic have been circulating amid soaring demand for the medicine that can be used for weight loss, the World Health Organisation said on Thursday.

The organisation said three fake batches were identified in Brazil and the UK in October last year and in the US in December.

It is the first time the global health body has issued an official warning, although it has been monitoring growing reports of phoney semaglutide, as Ozempic is known generically, since 2022.