Belgium has decided to temporarily ban the use of Novo Nordisk's diabetes drug Ozempic as a weight loss treatment amid a shortage of the medicine, according to a royal decree published in the country's Official Gazette on Tuesday.

Ozempic is approved to treat Type 2 diabetes but has increasingly been prescribed "off-label" to treat weight loss because it has the same active ingredient as Novo's hugely popular - and scarce - anti-obesity drug Wegovy.

In Britain, doctors and prescribers, including private online pharmacies, have been ordered to stop prescribing Ozempic to people who don't have type 2 diabetes as soon as possible.

They are also banned from starting new patients with type 2 diabetes on the medicine for as long as the shortage lasts.

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