Expressing grave concern regarding the intensification of medicine shortages and high costs in Iran, Hana Human Rights Organization declares that the disruption of access for patients—particularly those with special and rare diseases such as hemophilia, thalassemia, kidney failure, cancer, and EB—is not merely an executive crisis but, from a human rights perspective, a manifestation of the violation of the right to health and an assault on human dignity.
In conditions of war and regional tensions, the state is obligated to guarantee continuous, effective, and non-discriminatory access to life-saving medicines and cannot evade its legal responsibility by resorting to generalized narratives.
Pursuant to Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Islamic Republic of Iran is committed to guaranteeing the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. This commitment explicitly includes creating the necessary conditions for the treatment of diseases and access to essential medical services and supplies during illness.
Furthermore, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in General Comment No. 14, stipulates that the right to health cannot be realized without adequate, affordable, and non-discriminatory access to essential medicines. This committee places the provision of essential drugs among the core obligations of states and clarifies that failure to fulfill these obligations, even in times of crisis, is unjustifiable.
On this basis, any situation in which patients are forced to interrupt or alter their treatment due to medicine shortages, sharp price increases, distribution disruptions, delays in fulfilling insurance obligations, or the formation of an informal market can be considered a violation of the state’s international obligations. The government’s responsibility in this field is not merely to announce the existence of stockpiles or deny shortages. The state is duty-bound to manage the system of import, allocation, distribution, and monitoring of medicine in such a way that patients are not deprived of actual and safe access to vital medications.
Hana Human Rights Organization emphasizes that while sanctions and regional tensions can affect the supply chain, they do not absolve the government of its responsibility. Whenever a medicine crisis is coupled with mismanagement, lack of transparency, unfair distribution, or the inability to support vulnerable patients, the government’s legal responsibility is intensified. The persistence of this situation is not just administrative inefficiency but a systematic violation of the right to health.
Accordingly, Hana Human Rights Organization calls for immediate action by the Islamic Republic to ensure the sustainable supply of vital medicines, curb price increases, guarantee the fulfillment of insurance obligations, clarify the supply and distribution chain, and effectively prevent hoarding and black markets. The lives and health of patients cannot fall victim to crisis-mongering, official denial, or the state’s structural failure to act.