Medicare to get more expensive for unhealthy Pakistan

Now even medicine buyers will have to keep a track of global oil price movements as it would indirectly lead to a shift in drug prices. It may sound bizarre but it is true, as from now on, prices of 40 percent of the medicines will move along with the change in CPI inflation.
The said move is in response to the decade old plea of the pharma manufacturers to increase drug prices - which largely went unanswered. The proposed step, if implemented will provide the much needed cushion to the ailing gross margins of the industry that went down by 6 percent during FY02-FY08, as drug prices during the period remained largely stagnant.
As they say, desperate times call for desperate measures, the move seems to be a reaction to the one-by-one closure of various multinational pharma makers in the recent past and to those who are on the verge of wrapping up their businesses citing the unfavorable pricing scenario.
So far so good; but there is a grim picture on the flipside of the coin as well. It is hard to imagine how a country with the population rising at a rate of 2 percent per annum, where a piece of bread costs its natives half of their daily income, would be able to take the pinch of expensive medicines.
The increase in medicines prices would also encourage those fake drug producers who already are feared to have a 40 to 50 percent share in the market, according to the World Health Organisation.
Very little effort has been made to address the spurious drug issue and unsurprisingly they have all been futile, which demands a strict regulation by the Drug Regulatory Authority especially now when the risk has heightened.
Pakistan finds itself sitting alongside the poor West African countries when it is about the health indicators, as the per capita health expenditure is as dismal as $47 in Pakistan. The government allocates mere 3 percent of its total expenditure on the all important health sector, which clearly is not enough. Cushioning the ailing industry is commendable but it increases the governments responsibility to invest more in health sector.
For a healthy Pakistan and to meet the Millennium development Goals set by the UN, the latest health policy should be implemented in letter and spirit, besides allocating a larger portion of the budget to the health expenditures.
The recent steps taken by the government to slash unwanted expenditures is indeed a good move and one hopes that the money saved gets channeled to the health sector, as a healthy nation can do wonders in achieving larger economic goals.