Pakistan may often be at odds with neighboring India, but that has not stopped Indian products from being immensely popular in this country.
Indeed, these days, medicines have become the latest among Indian imports - which include movies and music - that have captured the fancy of Pakistani consumers.
In the North West Frontier Province, and especially in the adjacent tribal areas along the Pakistani-Afghan border, the medicines provide brisk business for drugstores.
All sorts of medicines from India are sold, including the most commonly prescribed drugs such as aspirin, Amoxillin, Ampicillin, Co-trimaxazole, Laxotanil, Ciprofloxine, Renitidin, Famotidine and Cemetidine.
Under Pakistani law, though, only medicines that are approved and registered with the health department can be sold in the country. Since the Indian drugs sold openly over the counter in the tribal areas are neither, the trade in them is illegal.
People, however, say officials are deliberately looking the other way because of the skyrocketing prices of Pakistani medicines.
Remarks Karim Khan, a tribesman from Khyber Agency, "By ignoring the Indian medicines, the government is doing great service to the poor people."
Some doctors are now even telling poor patients to seek out Indian medicines. This is largely because Indian drugs can be 10 times cheaper than those manufactured in Pakistan by the same multinational companies (MNCs).
Malik Akhtar Khan, who has been a pharmacist in Peshawar for decades, says Pakistani drug prices are high because the government allows the MNCs to import raw materials from their parent countries. In comparison, he says, pharmaceutical firms in India are bound by law to use local materials. In addition, says Khan, "MNCs, which normally have very high budgets, exploit their trademark."
India, of course, is known for having no adequate patent system for pharmaceuticals, save for the 70-year patents for drug production processes. This has enabled Indian firms to produce generic drugs that they sell at a fraction of the cost of branded medicines. As a result, MNCs have also been forced to lower their prices.
The Indian drug manufacturing system - which will undergo changes under the government's commitments to world trade rules - has been the envy of many developing countries.
Along with other goods, Indian medicines are smuggled into Afghanistan into Pakistan's tribal areas, and then eventually find their way to Peshawar. Afghanistan receives thousands of US dollars worth of medicines each month from India under a bilateral agreement. But some unscrupulous agencies in Kabul are apparently making huge profits from the arrangement and selling them in the tribal areas.
Medicines from India are likely to become even more popular in this country as Pakistan's Ministry of Health seeks a 6 to 10 percent increase in drug prices due to various economic factors such as the devalued Pakistani currency and repeated rises in energy costs.
As it is, many medicines are already being sold at higher prices in Pakistan compared to other South Asian countries.
According to a study conducted by the Consumers International Regional Office for Asia-Pacific, the prices of 17 out of 21 commonly consumed drugs are higher in Pakistan than in India, Nepal and Bangladesh.
The Pakistani government has tried to address this by allowing the import of drugs from China, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Poland and Yugoslavia. But health activists say the tactic has failed to work because of what they believe to be collusion between the MNCs, health professionals and government functionaries.
Zafar Mirza of the non-governmental organization Association of Rational Medication even hints of possible irregularities in the registration of medicines. He notes, for instance, that while the World Health Organization itself has a list of 270 drugs covering treatment of various ailments, Pakistan has more than 27,000 registered medicines.
Mirza also points out that while the registration of a drug takes some two years in the United Kingdom and the United States, Pakistan's Drug Registration Board (DRB) "has been registering roughly eight drugs on every working day during the last few years".
Meanwhile, some quarters have raised concerns regarding the safety of medicines from India. But one official of the Federal Drug Quality Control Board in Islamabad has said that laboratory tests conducted on samples of the smuggled drugs revealed most of them as safe.
Pharmacist Malik Akhtar Khan says one way of easing such worries is to simply register the Indian medicines, since this would mean these would have to pass through the regular government controls.
"When the need arose, Pakistan imported sugar from India," he says. "Why can't the government go for Indian drugs so that people can have access to cheaper drugs
اُمید صب*: Comparison of Medicine Prices in Pakistan & India
Indeed, these days, medicines have become the latest among Indian imports - which include movies and music - that have captured the fancy of Pakistani consumers.
In the North West Frontier Province, and especially in the adjacent tribal areas along the Pakistani-Afghan border, the medicines provide brisk business for drugstores.
All sorts of medicines from India are sold, including the most commonly prescribed drugs such as aspirin, Amoxillin, Ampicillin, Co-trimaxazole, Laxotanil, Ciprofloxine, Renitidin, Famotidine and Cemetidine.
Under Pakistani law, though, only medicines that are approved and registered with the health department can be sold in the country. Since the Indian drugs sold openly over the counter in the tribal areas are neither, the trade in them is illegal.
People, however, say officials are deliberately looking the other way because of the skyrocketing prices of Pakistani medicines.
Remarks Karim Khan, a tribesman from Khyber Agency, "By ignoring the Indian medicines, the government is doing great service to the poor people."
Some doctors are now even telling poor patients to seek out Indian medicines. This is largely because Indian drugs can be 10 times cheaper than those manufactured in Pakistan by the same multinational companies (MNCs).
Malik Akhtar Khan, who has been a pharmacist in Peshawar for decades, says Pakistani drug prices are high because the government allows the MNCs to import raw materials from their parent countries. In comparison, he says, pharmaceutical firms in India are bound by law to use local materials. In addition, says Khan, "MNCs, which normally have very high budgets, exploit their trademark."
India, of course, is known for having no adequate patent system for pharmaceuticals, save for the 70-year patents for drug production processes. This has enabled Indian firms to produce generic drugs that they sell at a fraction of the cost of branded medicines. As a result, MNCs have also been forced to lower their prices.
The Indian drug manufacturing system - which will undergo changes under the government's commitments to world trade rules - has been the envy of many developing countries.
Along with other goods, Indian medicines are smuggled into Afghanistan into Pakistan's tribal areas, and then eventually find their way to Peshawar. Afghanistan receives thousands of US dollars worth of medicines each month from India under a bilateral agreement. But some unscrupulous agencies in Kabul are apparently making huge profits from the arrangement and selling them in the tribal areas.
Medicines from India are likely to become even more popular in this country as Pakistan's Ministry of Health seeks a 6 to 10 percent increase in drug prices due to various economic factors such as the devalued Pakistani currency and repeated rises in energy costs.
As it is, many medicines are already being sold at higher prices in Pakistan compared to other South Asian countries.
According to a study conducted by the Consumers International Regional Office for Asia-Pacific, the prices of 17 out of 21 commonly consumed drugs are higher in Pakistan than in India, Nepal and Bangladesh.
The Pakistani government has tried to address this by allowing the import of drugs from China, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Poland and Yugoslavia. But health activists say the tactic has failed to work because of what they believe to be collusion between the MNCs, health professionals and government functionaries.
Zafar Mirza of the non-governmental organization Association of Rational Medication even hints of possible irregularities in the registration of medicines. He notes, for instance, that while the World Health Organization itself has a list of 270 drugs covering treatment of various ailments, Pakistan has more than 27,000 registered medicines.
Mirza also points out that while the registration of a drug takes some two years in the United Kingdom and the United States, Pakistan's Drug Registration Board (DRB) "has been registering roughly eight drugs on every working day during the last few years".
Meanwhile, some quarters have raised concerns regarding the safety of medicines from India. But one official of the Federal Drug Quality Control Board in Islamabad has said that laboratory tests conducted on samples of the smuggled drugs revealed most of them as safe.
Pharmacist Malik Akhtar Khan says one way of easing such worries is to simply register the Indian medicines, since this would mean these would have to pass through the regular government controls.
"When the need arose, Pakistan imported sugar from India," he says. "Why can't the government go for Indian drugs so that people can have access to cheaper drugs
اُمید صب*: Comparison of Medicine Prices in Pakistan & India
