Iran's Pasteur Institute Director Speaks Out After Strike, Vows Health Mission Endures

The director of Tehran's Pasteur Institute gave his first extended interview since the facility was struck, describing the loss of equipment and research capacity as a setback for a country that depends on domestic vaccine production.

By Moemedi Michael PoncanaMIDDLE_EAST3-minute read2 Jun 2026☆ Save ↗ Share ⎙ Print

The director of the Pasteur Institute of Iran has given his first extended public account of the damage done to Tehran's oldest virology research centre, saying in an exclusive interview published on 2 June 2026 that the strike destroyed laboratory space, diagnostic equipment, and a cold-chain storage facility that held millions of doses of domestically produced vaccines.

Alireza Ghasemi, who has led the institute since 2018, told Press TV the destruction would slow Iran's rollout of routine immunisations for months and had set back research into the country's own seasonal influenza and emerging infectious disease surveillance programmes. He stopped short of providing a precise accounting of what was destroyed, citing ongoing damage assessments. His account was not independently verified by outside observers, and the US and Israeli governments have not publicly detailed their rationale for striking the facility.

The Pasteur Institute was established in 1921 under a Franco-Persian scientific agreement and has since become Iran's primary institution for vaccine development, serology, and epidemiological research. It has produced the country's domestically manufactured versions of polio, measles, and hepatitis B vaccines. Iranian health officials have described it as irreplaceable on a ten-to-fifteen-year timeline, meaning no foreign supplier can quickly substitute for the capacity that was lost.

Ghasemi said the institute's public health mission would continue, but acknowledged the scope of that mission had narrowed. "We will rebuild what we can, source what we must, and continue — because the alternative is to leave 85 million people without the vaccines they depend on," he said, according to Press TV. He gave no timeline for recovery.

The attack on the institute has drawn scrutiny from humanitarian organisations, though international bodies have not yet issued formal assessments of the damage. A spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross said on 28 May that medical facilities in conflict zones are protected under international humanitarian law and that any strike on one requires a high evidentiary bar — that the site was being used for a clearly military purpose, not merely adjacent to one. No public evidence has been presented to meet that threshold. Tehran has said the institute was a civilian scientific facility with no connection to any weapons programme.

What Ghasemi's account reveals, beyond the immediate damage, is the fragility of domestic health manufacturing capacity in countries subject to escalating sanctions and military pressure. Iran has spent two decades developing independent vaccine production partly because international pharmaceutical companies, constrained by US secondary sanctions, have historically been unwilling or unable to supply the Iranian market reliably. The Pasteur Institute was the institutional anchor of that strategy. Its degradation — even if temporary — leaves Tehran more dependent on external supply chains that are themselves vulnerable to disruption.

The broader pattern is not unique to Iran. Across recent conflicts, strikes on civilian health infrastructure have reduced the ability of target countries to conduct routine public health programmes. In Syria, multiple hospitals were destroyed during the civil war, and WHO data shows immunisation coverage dropped sharply in affected provinces for several years. The same dynamic applies in Yemen and Libya. The question of whether such strikes are proportional to military gain — or whether the loss of civilian health capacity is treated as an acceptable secondary consequence — has been raised repeatedly at the UN Security Council without resolution.

Whether the Pasteur Institute strike was deliberate or the result of intelligence failure, the effect on Iran's public health system is concrete. Routine childhood vaccination coverage is likely to be disrupted in the coming quarters. Seasonal flu monitoring — already limited due to Iran's reduced laboratory network — will become harder. The director's vow to continue is credible as far as it goes; what it cannot yet address is the gap between a reduced institute and the full-scale public health obligations Tehran faces.

Ghasemi's tone in the interview was measured, less a demand for accountability than an assertion that the work resumes regardless. That posture — continuing under constraint — has defined Iranian public health institutions through decades of sanctions and isolation. Whether it survives this particular episode intact will depend on how quickly reconstruction funding can be mobilised, what equipment can be sourced through third-country intermediaries, and whether the international system treats the destruction of a vaccine-manufacturing facility as a matter warranting humanitarian carve-outs on procurement sanctions.

This publication notes that the dominant Western-wire framing of the Pasteur Institute story led with the military operation's strategic rationale; Monexus has prioritised the public health consequences for Iran's civilian population.

Wire provenance

This editorial synthesis draws on the following public wire/social posts:

https://t.me/presstv/18432