Islamic Revolution in Iran has affected Iranian health very well. The following statistics prove Iran’s medical advances after the Islamic Revolution.
Before the Islamic Revolution, of every 1,000 infants, 111 infants died at birth or before they became one year old. This statistic, which is called Infant Mortality Rate (IMR), has improved after Islamic Revolution. Nowadays, only 10 infants of every 1,000 infants die at birth or under the age 1. IMR world average is 31 infants and IMR West Asia average is about 20 infants. Thus Iran’s IMR has reached below the global and regional average after Islamic Revolution.
Another indicator which shows the health level of a society is the under-five mortality rate. This index is the number of deaths of infants and children under five years old per 1,000 live births. Before Islamic Revolution, of every 1,000 children, 174 children died under the age 5. But after the Revolution, this index has reduced to 36 children of every 1,000. Thus, based on international sources statistics like World Health Organization (WHO), Iran now is among the safest countries for children and infants in the world.
Another important rate is maternal mortality rate. Maternal death or maternal mortality is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as “the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management but not from accidental or incidental causes. Iran’s maternal death has decreased from 245 of every 100,000 to 20 of every 100,000.
These improvements finally lead to increasing Life Expectancy among Iranian. Life expectancy for Iranian men has increased from 56 years before Islamic Revolution to 72 years and for Iranian women from 57 years to 76 years. In this case, Iran is among most successful countries that improve life expectancy up to global average 71.5 years.
One of the main reasons for boosting Iranian life expectancy is an increase in the number of doctors and physicians in Iran. Before Islamic Revolution, there were only 14,700 doctors in Iran and therefore, the country was forced to employ non-Iranian doctors from other countries. But after Islamic Revolution until the end of 2018, the number of doctors in Iran has increased to more than 170,000 doctors.
On the other hand, hospital bed capacity in Iran was around 56,000 before Islamic Revolution. At the beginning of 2018, there was more than 120,000 hospital bed capacity in Iran.
Islamic Republic Of Iran has had a great performance in rural health. Before the Revolution, there were only 1,500 rural health centers in Iran. The number has increased to more than 18,000 until the end of 2017.
In pharmaceutical and drug production, Islamic Republic of Iran has made a very good progress too. Before Islamic revolution, only 25% of Iran’s needed drugs were produced internally and therefore about 75% were imported from other countries. Nowadays, Iran produces more than 97% of its drugs internally and only 3% of very specific drugs are imported, this means that Iran achieved self-sufficiency in medical sections despite sanctions and now exports its medicine to African and Central Asian countries.
Health insurance industry in Iran has also made huge progress after the Revolution. Before that, Iran had 12 Insurance companies and only about 2 million Iranians were insured. But after that, the number of insurance companies has increased to 28 and more than 65 million Iranians are insured.
