It is a field station of the faculty of Tropical Medicine, at Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand, and is part of the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU) Since 1986, the Shoklo Malaria Research Unit (SMRU-MORU) attached to the Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University in Bangkok, and the University of Oxford, UK, has worked among the uprooted population to reduce the impact of multi-drug resistant malaria and other infectious diseases. SMRU-MORU’s focus has always been on the groups at most risk from malaria: children and pregnant women, with one of the most effective ways of detecting the disease being through the operation of antenatal clinics. Until 1995 this work was focused only in the refugee camps and a strong collaboration was established with the NGO community to control malaria in the refugee population through the operation of “the Malaria Task Force” (MTF), supported by ECHO for several years. This was largely successful and malaria is now a minor problem within the camps. The vast majority of malaria cases treated in the camps is in people with a recent history of travel outside the camp perimeter, usually to rural areas along the border or in Myanamr.
