West Africa’s sick taxes among highest

Medicine tariffs in West Africa are among the highest in the world, reveals a London-based think tank group, International Policy Network. The group urged Nigeria, Iran and Nepal to strive hard to abolish medicine tariffs. According to Philip Stevens, author of the study, “West Africa suffers from very high rates of diseases that are easy to treat or prevent with appropriate medicines. A lack of proper health systems means that most people have to pay for medicines out of their own pockets. It is unconscionable that an oil-rich nation like Nigeria taxes its sick in this way, and Ghana is not much better.”The study names Nigeria as the second highest taxer of life-saving medicines in the world, ranking behind only Burundi. Nigeria, a country that grapples with high burden of infectious diseases, imposes a 20% duty on imported penicillin antibiotic, undoubtedly the highest in the world. Ghana that increases the tariff prices of vaccines and antibiotics by 10% ranks second to Nigeria in West Africa. The Gambia, Chad, DR Congo and Equatorial Guinea are also said to have increased 5% increase on drugs tariffs whereas Gabon and Cameroon have reduced tariffs to zero. Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire and Benin have earlier reduced medicine tariffs to zero. Stevens insists that “all countries should strive to copy Gabon and Cameroon, which have recently removed these taxes aimed at the sick and the dying.”