SA pharmacy reforms 'create rural shortage'

Rural South African pharmacies are being forced out of business as the result of reforms designed to make drugs more affordable for the country's poorest communities. An unintended consequence of the government's price intervention has been to deprive many people of local access to over-the-counter drugs, forcing them to pay consultation fees to doctors who then dispense the drug or travel to sometimes distant towns.

Steinsburg, an Eastern Cape provincial town with a population of 16,000, lost its only pharmacy recently, suggesting that competition from new larger firms is not always as significant a factor as local commentators report.

Price reductions, which could save up to 3.0 billion rand ($422.1 million) per year, however, enjoy popular support in South Africa, where an estimated five million people are infected with HIV/AIDS, the second largest number after India (Marketletter June 12). Many sufferers are not covered by medical insurers.