WHAT IRANIAN PEOPLE EXPERIENCED: SANCTION AND WAR, TWO SIDES OF A COIN

Background: Sanctions theoretically are a peaceful alternative for military action, in order to control governments. Sanctions vary in form and could be coercive or signaling. Iran has been the target of almost 35 sanctions since 1979, which intensified at 2005. Long-term economic sanctions have impacted Iran’s economic system.Method: The Review is accomplished via search in data related to health and sanction in Iran, since 2012. Search strategy consisted of sanction , health and Iran keywords, using PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar data banks. Preliminary studies, namely studies addressing health-related issues were included.Result: Among the results, 40 articles were selected for full-text reading, among which 7 articles had the eligibility criteria to be included. 8 included studies addressed the effects of sanctions on access to drugs for the treatment of cancers, non-communicable diseases, asthma, epilepsy, addiction, and hemophilia.Conclusion: Economic sanctions against Iran are not aimed to impress people, but they had. Unfortunately, there is the scarcity of evidence in quantifying the impact of sanction including in the field of food security. Sanctions should be monitored and if the human rights violation occurs they should be lifted. Also, target countries should be aware of sanctions’ consequences and plan against it.