About SMRU
The Shoklo Malaria Research Unit (SMRU) is a field station of the faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand, and is part of the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU) supported by Wellcome (UK). The main objective of SMRU is to provide quality health care to the marginalized populations living on both sides of the Thai-Myanmar border in Tak Province. This is achieved by the dual activities of research and humanitarian services, with an emphasis on maternal-child health and infectious diseases.
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Saw Poe Christ
Refugees
Since the late 1980’s a string of refugee camps along the Thai-Myanmar border have been home to approximately 100,000 displaced people from Myanmar, predominantly Karen, Mon, and Karenni ethnic minorities. This area is endemic for malaria, which results in symptomatic infection in all age groups. In Shoklo, in the 1990s the attack rate was three episodes per person per year for the potentially fatal Plasmodium falciparum parasite (which accounted for approximately 70% of infections). P. vivax accounted for 20% of cases. By 2016, malaria incidence was reduced to sporadic cases and SMRU phased out is refugee camp presence.
Migrants
Since the middle of the 1990s, the population influx from Myanmar has increased dramatically for both economic and political reasons. People from all ethnic groups (Shan, Karenni, Karen, Mon, and Burman) are traveling back and forth across the border in search of work, with additional migration pressure caused by the aftermath of the 2021 coup d’état. Unlike refugees, they are highly mobile, and the majority do not have access to basic health care. Collectively, they harbor the majority of Thailand's malaria cases.