Pharmacy abundance

It’s never fun when you get sick while on vacation and have to go to a pharmacy. But if there is one country where a pharmacy is easy to find, it’s Brazil. With 51 pharmacies per 100,000 inhabitants, Brazil is among the countries with the highest pharmacy densities in the world. Sometimes, competing pharmacy chains are located next to each other. In Brazil, pharmacies are also a large distribution channel for beauty and personal care products, taking up about 50% to 80% of the selling space. Perhaps it’s not surprising a Dutch person notices the stark difference in pharmacy density between their own country and Brazil, given the Netherlands has one of the lowest pharmacy densities in the world.

Source: OECD, WHO, various sources, May 2024.