Iran protests: What is happening in Iran and what is MSF doing?

Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) teams in Iran are safe and are maintaining care for existing patients, while offering medical support to hospitals.

MSF continues to follow developments in Iran closely with profound concern.

The immense loss of life reported by media outlets is devastating. As communication remains sporadic, it is extremely difficult for us to get information on the current situation or to confirm reports, including on the number of casualties and deaths.

We have been able to make brief contact with our teams in Iran who are safe and have been able to maintain care for our existing patients.

We are not authorised to carry out activities beyond the scope of our projects focused on marginalised communities in Iran. However, we continue to propose medical support to hospitals. MSF has not received any patients with injuries related to the violence so far.

What is MSF doing in Iran?

MSF runs three projects in Iran that provide primary healthcare services, including medical and midwife consultations, infectious disease screening, hepatitis C treatment and nursing, and mental health services to marginalised people – in particular Afghan refugees – in South Tehran, Mashhad and in Kerman province. These groups of people face major barriers to care due to stigma, criminalisation, lack of identification or insurance, and inability to pay.

South Tehran

MSF opened its project in South Tehran 2012 to address critical healthcare gaps faced by marginalised people in one of Tehran’s poorest and most complex urban areas.  

Our teams provide integrated, patient-centred primary health care to through a fixed clinic, mobile clinics, and targeted activities with vulnerable people. The primary healthcare services include infectious and non-infectious disease care, sexual and reproductive health care, wound care, mental health and psychosocial support, hepatitis C screening and treatment, referrals to secondary care, as well as social support, and health promotion.

Mashhad

MSF has been present in Mashhad, Iran's second largest city, close to the border with Afghanistan, since 1996. Since 2018, MSF teams have run several mobile clinics offering medical and psychological consultations and screening for infectious diseases amongst vulnerable groups. In the clinic in the Golshahr district, where most of Mashhad's Afghan refugees live, MSF teams provide counselling, social support, health education, and referrals to specialised health facilities.

Kerman province

MSF is the only medical organisation providing direct health services to Afghan refugees in Kerman province. Our primary healthcare centres support underserved peripheral areas of Kerman city, host to around 200,000 Afghans. Since April 2024, MSF has been operating the Vahdat clinic, 10 kilometres outside the city, and is now establishing a fixed clinic in Kerman in partnership with health authorities. Services will cover communicable and non-communicable diseases, sexual and reproductive health, mental health and psychosocial support, wound care, and screening for tuberculosis, HIV, hepatitis B and C.