Tehran, August 6 (RHC)-- Iran's Minister of Health Saeed Namaki says sanctions imposed by the United States against Iran's health sector amount to crime against humanity.  The Iranian minister made the remarks in a joint press conference with his Lebanese counterpart, Jamil Jabak, in Tehran, saying: “Measures taken by the U.S. administration in banning [access to] medicines needed by Iranian patients and pressures mounted by Washington on Iran's health sector amount to crime against humanity.”

Last year, President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the U.S. out of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, officially named the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and unleashed the “toughest ever” sanctions against Tehran.  Officially, the sanctions exempt humanitarian goods, such as medicine and medicinal instruments.  But in reality, the measures have restricted Iran's access to medical and health services.

Last November, the Islamic Republic of Iran Medical Council (IRIMC) said illegal economic sanctions have negative impacts on the country’s health sector.  

Elsewhere in his remarks, Namaki said imposing sanctions on health and medical sector of any country is illogical and inhumane, emphasizing, however, that “at the present time, we produce 97 of medicines needed by [Iranian] patients inside the country and we are facing problems for the supply of only three percent of medications.”

“Despite the U.S. pressures, medicines needed by all patients have been supplied.  We are also planning, in cooperation with Iranian knowledge-based companies and young scientists, to meet all our medical needs within the country in coming years and become needless of imports,” the Iranian minister added.

Namaki stated that there are enough raw materials for producing medicines inside the country and Iran does not rely on other countries in this regard.  In a tweet in early March 2019, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif announced that 66 Iranian scientific medical societies had written to the UN chief in condemnation of the “inhumane and medieval” American sanctions targeting Iran’s health sector.