Bahrain

Because of Bahrain's relatively small population and petro-wealth the country's health care is of fairly high quality, except for specialist procedures. However, the burden of universal healthcare is growing increasingly costly for the Bahraini government, costing $1.45bn a year and there are plans to scrap it in favour of compulsory health insurance instead.

Since 2001, Bahrain has dropped tariffs on medicines from 5% to 0%. However, considerable non-tariff barriers prevent the cheap imports of medicines: pharmaceutical products must be imported directly from a manufacturer that has a research department and that is licensed in at least two other countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), one of which must be Saudi Arabia. Vaccines are not taxed.