The Pasteur Institute of Iran was founded in 1920 in Tehran, built with French scientific cooperation and a mandate to produce vaccines against the infectious diseases that were still killing large numbers of people across the country and the broader Middle East. In 106 years of operation, it controlled smallpox outbreaks, built Iran's rabies vaccine program from scratch, helped eliminate cholera epidemics, and became a regional hub for influenza surveillance and hepatitis B immunization. On or around April 2, 2026, it was severely damaged in an airstrike that Iranian officials attributed to the United States and Israel.
The World Health Organization confirmed the attack. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X that the Pasteur Institute had "sustained significant damage and was rendered unable to continue delivering health services." He said it was one of more than 20 healthcare facilities attacked in Iran since March 1 — the day after Operation Epic Fury began. Those 20 or more attacks had killed at least 9 people, including an infectious disease health worker and a member of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, per Tedros's statement as reported by Al Jazeera.
Iran's own state news agency ISNA said the Pasteur Institute's "services have not been interrupted by these attacks" and that vaccine and serum production would continue. The Iranian Ministry of Health spokesperson Hossein Kermanpour posted images on X showing a heavily damaged building with parts of the facility reduced to rubble, calling the strike "a direct assault on international health security," according to the New York Times. The US and Israeli militaries did not issue statements confirming or justifying the specific strike on the Pasteur Institute.
What the Pasteur Institute of Iran Actually Is
The Pasteur Institute of Iran is not a minor facility. It is one of the oldest and largest biomedical research and vaccine production centers in the Middle East.
It was established through a formal agreement between the Institut Pasteur of Paris and the Iranian government in 1920, with the explicit mission of improving public health across Iran. According to the institute's own academic publications, summarized by ResearchGate and Wikipedia, it has produced vaccines against smallpox, cholera, rabies, hepatitis B, tuberculosis, typhoid, anthrax, and influenza over its century of operation.
Its specific contributions include:
- Establishing and running Iran's national rabies vaccine program, which protects tens of thousands of Iranians annually from a disease that is nearly 100% fatal once symptoms appear
- Producing BCG vaccine (tuberculosis) and hepatitis B vaccine distributed through Iran's national immunization program
- Operating as a WHO-designated National Influenza Centre, conducting annual surveillance and coordinating with the global influenza monitoring network
- Producing biological reference standards and diagnostic kits used by Iran's healthcare system
- Running one of the few remaining research programs on neglected tropical diseases in the region
The institute is also a member of the Pasteur Network, the global federation of institutes affiliated with or modeled on the original Institut Pasteur in Paris. That network includes more than 30 institutions across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The Pasteur Institute of Iran was one of the older and more established members of that network.
What "Rendered Unable to Continue Delivering Health Services" Means
The WHO's formulation — that the institute was "rendered unable to continue delivering health services" — is carefully worded. It is consistent with the WHO's practice of verifying attacks on health infrastructure through its own systems (the Surveillance System for Attacks on Health Care, or SSA), rather than relying solely on government claims from either side.
Iran's ISNA counter-claim — that operations continue — raises the possibility that the institute was damaged but not destroyed, that some production lines survived, or that production has been moved to backup facilities. The two statements are not necessarily contradictory: a facility can be unable to deliver services to the public while still running internal manufacturing processes in less damaged sections. Neither side has provided a detailed independent assessment.
The National, a UAE-based outlet with strong regional sourcing, reported that the WHO confirmed the institute "sustained significant damage and was rendered unable to continue delivering health services," and quoted experts saying that destroying it "could have no other purpose than assaulting Iran's history." Al-Monitor, which covers the Middle East with regional expertise, reported the same WHO statement and confirmed Iranian government sourcing.
Regardless of whether vaccine production has been fully halted or merely disrupted, the attack on an institution whose stated purpose is public health vaccine production represents a new category of target in this war.
The 20-Plus Attacks the WHO Has Confirmed
The Pasteur Institute was not the first Iranian healthcare facility struck in this war. It is the most prominent.
WHO Director General Tedros said in his April 3 X post, as reported by Al Jazeera, that "since 1 March, WHO has verified over 20 attacks on health care in Iran, resulting in at least nine deaths, including that of an infectious diseases health worker and a member of the Iranian Red Crescent Society."
Al Jazeera's April 3 reporting identified Gandhi Hospital in Tehran as one facility hit in early March — Iranian medical personnel held a public protest in front of it after the strike, with photographs taken by Abedin Taherkenareh of EPA documenting the ruins. The National's coverage placed the Pasteur Institute as the most recent and significant target in this sequence.
Tedros earlier said that airstrikes had struck "near WHO's office in the Iranian capital, Tehran, shattering windows." He said in that earlier statement: "Strikes impacting the operations and damaging the premises of WHO and other UN agencies, the locations of which have been clearly identified, cannot be tolerated and must be avoided at all costs."
The US and Israeli militaries have not addressed the WHO's specific findings about healthcare facility strikes. The Pentagon's standard response to civilian infrastructure damage claims has been to say that all strikes are conducted against legitimate military targets.
What International Law Says
The laws of armed conflict — primarily the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols — provide specific protections for medical facilities and personnel. Under Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, medical units and transport are protected from attack. That protection can be lost if a facility is being "used, outside their humanitarian function, to commit acts harmful to the enemy" — but the attacking party is required to give a warning and a reasonable time to respond before proceeding with a strike on a protected medical facility.
The Pasteur Institute is not a hospital and does not treat military casualties. It is a vaccine production and biomedical research facility. Whether it falls within the protected category of "medical units" under international humanitarian law is a genuinely contested legal question. Hospitals are clearly protected; vaccine factories occupy a more ambiguous legal space.
However, the attack raises a separate question under the principle of proportionality, which applies to all civilian objects: even if the Pasteur Institute is not legally classified as a protected medical unit, any attack on it must weigh the anticipated military advantage against the anticipated harm to civilians. An institution whose primary function is producing vaccines against rabies, tuberculosis, and hepatitis B has a difficult-to-articulate military value. Its destruction would cause civilian harm — disruption of immunization programs, loss of reference diagnostic standards, and gaps in influenza surveillance — that is both foreseeable and long-term.
Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian appealed directly to "international health organisations" on April 3, per Al Jazeera, to respond to the attacks on medical facilities. The Iranian Red Crescent has raised the healthcare attack pattern with the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The Broader Pattern: What Has Been Hit
The Pasteur Institute strike fits into a documented escalation of targeting beyond military installations. The same week it was hit, the New York Times reported that US forces also struck Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, a major research university. The B1 bridge between Tehran and Karaj was destroyed on or around April 2, killing 8 people according to Iranian state media (a death toll that NPR later said had risen to 13 based on updated Iranian state media figures). Trump posted publicly: "Bridges next, then Electric Power Plants!" after the bridge strike, per Reuters.
The pattern is no longer exclusively military-to-military. The war has extended to bridges, universities, public health institutions, and the WHO's own neighborhood. Whether this constitutes a deliberate strategy to break the Iranian population's will, or an expansion of targeting categories to increase pressure toward a negotiated outcome, or collateral damage to dual-use facilities, is not something US military officials have addressed publicly.
What Happens to Vaccine Programs During Wars
The disruption of vaccine production during conflicts has consequences that arrive months or years after the strike, not immediately. Rabies is perhaps the clearest example: the incubation period before symptoms appear can be months, and treatment with post-exposure prophylaxis must begin quickly after exposure. If the Pasteur Institute's rabies vaccine production is disrupted even temporarily, the consequence is not visible in the days after the strike. It is visible in the patients who arrive at hospitals months later with no treatment available.
Iran had a functional, nationally self-sufficient vaccine supply before the war. The WHO's influenza surveillance network depended in part on the Pasteur Institute as its Iranian node. Whether those capabilities survive the war — and in what form — will shape Iranian public health for years beyond any ceasefire.
The Numbers
- 1920 — Year the Pasteur Institute of Iran was founded, through a Paris-Tehran agreement
- 106 — Years of operation before the strike
- 20+ — Healthcare facilities attacked in Iran since March 1, per WHO verification
- 9 — Deaths confirmed by WHO from healthcare facility strikes, including a Red Crescent worker
- 8 to 13 — Deaths from the B1 bridge strike, per Iranian state media (initial figure 8, updated to 13 per NPR)
- 0 — Official US or Israeli statements confirming or explaining the Pasteur Institute strike
The Bottom Line
The Pasteur Institute of Iran is not a weapons facility. It has spent 106 years producing vaccines against diseases that kill people. The WHO has confirmed it was severely damaged and could not continue delivering health services. The WHO has separately confirmed more than 20 attacks on Iranian healthcare facilities since the war began, with at least 9 people killed.
The US has not acknowledged the strike or explained its military rationale. Iran says production continues but has released images showing significant structural destruction.
The question of whether vaccine laboratories are legitimate military targets under international law does not have a clean answer. But the question of what happens to the people who needed those vaccines does.