Iran’s Medical Crisis Deepens Amid War, Sanctions, and Supply Chain Breakdown

Sanctions, currency instability, and longstanding pressures on Iran’s insurance system have long made medical treatment difficult to access. Now, the conflict launched by the US and Israel has exacerbated the crisis by disrupting regional supply routes, damaging health infrastructure, and further straining an already fragile pharmaceutical market.

The shortages are having a tangible impact on daily life. Patients are traveling between multiple pharmacies in search of medications, while doctors report increasing numbers of people abandoning prescriptions due to unaffordable prices.

Disrupted Supply Chains and Financial Restrictions

As a country dependent on imported raw materials and foreign-made drugs, Iran faces mounting challenges when supply routes are disrupted and transportation costs rise—effects that quickly translate into domestic shortages and price spikes.

Even medicines officially exempt from sanctions face procurement difficulties due to banking and payment restrictions, making import processes slow, complex, and costly.

This financial bottleneck has plagued Iran’s pharmaceutical sector for years. In wartime, these issues compound: rising prices, disrupted supply chains, damaged infrastructure, and eroded purchasing power create a reinforcing cycle of scarcity.

While Iranian officials maintain that strategic reserves and domestic production have prevented collapse, reports from patients, physicians, and industry sources paint a more troubling picture.

Hadi Ahmadi, spokesperson for the Iranian Pharmacists Association, warns that the war could trigger new shortages of key production materials such as aluminum and petrochemicals.

Even where medicine stock remains, future manufacturing may be jeopardized by the potential scarcity of industrial inputs and packaging materials.

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Patients Abandon Treatment

Clinics and pharmacies are bearing the brunt of the crisis. An Iranian general practitioner told DW that some medications have effectively vanished since the war began, while others appear sporadically or at sharply inflated prices.

A cardiologist reported that price increases have reached levels where patients simply stop purchasing their prescriptions.

One patient described how a pharmacy stored the anti-platelet drug Osvix in a safe—available in theory but priced beyond most people’s means.

Though based on individual accounts, these cases reflect a broader trend: the crisis now affects routine treatments, not just specialized therapies.

People Left Searching for Treatment

In Rasht, a relative of an elderly diabetic patient said insulin was being sold at six times its previous price. Another chronic illness patient reported having only 18 days of medication left and spending six weeks visiting pharmacy after pharmacy without success.

“I’ve been searching for just one medicine, and it’s caused immense stress,” he said. “I can’t imagine what those with multiple conditions or serious illnesses are going through.”

Patients increasingly rely on social media and private messaging groups to share information about which pharmacies still have specific drugs in stock.

Before the war, many families turned to relatives abroad to smuggle medicines from neighboring countries or Europe. Tighter restrictions and weakened communication channels have largely halted these informal supply networks.

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