TEHRAN – In a new article published in the International Journal of Health Policy and Management (IJHPM), scholars from eight countries have warned that the physical destruction of the Pasteur Institute of Iran by the US-Israeli strikes on April 2 could disrupt key public health functions across the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR).

The paper highlights that sanctions and platform exclusion block its surviving researchers from accessing the databases and networks they would need to rebuild, and research programs that took decades to build cannot be reconstituted in years.

Titled Scholasticide, and Population Health in the Eastern Mediterranean, the article is written by 16 institutions across eight countries, including the University of Toronto, Stanford University School of Medicine, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the University of Geneva, the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, the University of Ottawa, the University of California San Diego, the American University of Beirut, and Kerman University of Medical Sciences.

The paper highlights that systematic destruction of academic infrastructure, termed scholasticide, has been normalized across the EMR over more than two decades.

“The doctrine has operated through two coexisting modalities: the targeted assassination of individual scholars and the physical destruction of institutions, escalating in scale from selective killings and partial looting to the dismantling of entire academic systems.”

Referring to the recent imposed war against Iran, it says that over 30 Iranian universities have been directly attacked by the United States and Israel since the war began in late February.

Founded in 1920, the Pasteur Institute of Iran is a longstanding member of the Pasteur Network. The Institute contributes to national, regional, and global public health through its national reference laboratories, WHO Collaborating Centers, disease surveillance and diagnostics, biobanks, and the production of essential medical countermeasures.

“The doctrine of academic expendability has operated through two modalities: the targeted assassination of individual academics and scientists, and the physical destruction or occupation of institutions, both of which have coexisted across the EMR.

What has escalated is their scale and completeness; from the selective killing of individual knowledge holders and the partial looting of campuses, to the systematic dismantling of entire institutional systems, including the equipment, samples, knowledge resources, and organizational capacity that sustain them.”

The paper warns that targeting universities, institutions, and laboratories does not merely lead to physical destruction.

“It eliminates ongoing research programs, specimen collections, institutional knowledge, supervisory capacity, organizational memory, and cumulative routines that cannot be reconstructed from publications alone.”

The paper urges the global community to take actions and stop attacks on academic infrastructure as a legal obligation, underlining that “if the global health community does not interrupt this cycle now, through standing international mechanisms rather than one-off crisis responses, we risk forfeiting the moral authority to invoke these protections in any future conflicts, for any people.

Human rights, including the rights to education, science, and health, are not negotiable. Safeguarding them is our collective responsibility.
That responsibility demands not only condemnation, but specificity, consistency, and concrete action.”

Moreover, in an article published in The Lancet – one of the most prestigious peer-reviewed publications among international general medical journals – on May 16, prominent Iranian and foreign scholars called on global health communities to deploy their full capacity to protect health-care infrastructures and to foster the full restoration of the Pasteur Institute of Iran’s essential laboratory and its diagnostic, surveillance, and vaccine capabilities, which were damaged during the US-Israeli strikes against the country’s scientific facilities.

“We urgently call on the international health communities to deploy their full capacity to protect health-care infrastructures and to foster the full restoration of the Pasteur Institute of Iran’s essential laboratory and its diagnostic, surveillance, and vaccine capabilities. This is not solely a national issue; regional health security is also at risk,” they wrote.

Following the attack on April 2, Mario Moreira, President of the Pasteur Network, expressed concern over the destruction of the Pasteur Institute of Iran, and warned of the potential regional impacts as it disrupts the major role of this century-old pillar of global health in prevention and control of existing and rising health threats in the region.

“The reported damage to the Pasteur Institute of Iran is deeply concerning. This institution plays an important role in supporting the health of populations in Iran and the region. When such capacities are disrupted, diagnostics, surveillance, and response to ongoing and emerging threats may be affected, with potential implications for health security beyond national borders,” Moreira highlighted.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization, warned that the conflict in Iran and the region is impacting the delivery of health services and the safety of health workers, patients, and civilians present at health facilities.

“Multiple attacks on health have been reported in the Iranian capital, Tehran, in recent days amid the escalating conflict in the Middle East.

The Pasteur Institute in Iran sustained significant damage and was rendered unable to continue delivering health services,” he wrote on X on April 3.

“The Institute was established in 1920 and has been operating for over a century in multiple areas of medical research. It plays an important role in protecting and promoting population health, including in emergencies. Two of its departments have been working with WHO as collaborating centres.”

MT/MG