British patients are not getting their medicines these days for the same reasons Pakistani consumers don’t get their mangos and kinos. A six-month inquiry by the All Party Pharmacy Group into medicines shortages in UK has indicated excessive sale of medicines abroad by parallel exporters cashing in on the weak pound and the UK’s low drug prices.

Although Pakistan is the fifth largest producer and third largest exporter of mangoes in the world, but Pakistani consumers don’t get the best quality mangos as they are reserved for export. Mango producers and traders made more than $300 million from mango export last year, doubling from $150 million in 2010.

Pakistan is the largest producer of Kino, a unique variety of citrus indigenous to this part of the world. According to an estimate approximately 95 percent of the total Kino produced all over the world is grown in Pakistan. It goes without saying that the best quality kinos are exported to be consumed in North America, Europe, Gulf and China.

In UK back in 2010 it was estimated that around £40-million worth of medicines – including some for potentially life-threatening conditions – destined for the UK National Health Service were being diverted abroad every month, despite a package of measures designed to curb such activity, which has been affecting the UK for four years.

This exporting is conducted by speculators and is legal under EU and UK law, and ministers say they have no problem with the principle of parallel exports as long as patients are not being harmed. “However, throughout this inquiry we have seen evidence that patients are suffering and that pharmacists’ time and resources is being diverted away from patient care as a result of medicines being in short supply,” the APPG noted.

Pakistani consumers of mangos and kinos are also suffering as they are left to make do with the second or even third grade fruits to be bought at high prices.

It is in the lighter vain but are Pakistanis suffering any less than the British?