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Ethox programme REACH (Resilience, Empowerment and Advocacy in Women's and Children's Health Research) posted a visual research gallery as a Public Engagement project. Six galleries of photos by SMRU's Suphak Nosten depict aspects of migrant workers' daily lives: the Thai-Myanmar border; work; cultural and spiritual values; the often-difficult journeys seeking healthcare; striving for better; and dedicated frontline health workers. Richly coloured, sometimes personal, Suphak’s photography is deeply empathetic and memorable.

Suphak Nosten and a young Thai girl kicking down corn in a big pile, at the Myanmar-Thai border

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Ruam Thai Phatthana 2 Clinic Officially Opens in Phop Phra District

The Ruam Thai Phatthana 2 (RTS) Clinic was officially opened on 24 September 2026 in Ruam Thai Subdistrict, Phop Phra District, Tak Province, marking a new chapter in healthcare services for communities along the Thailand–Myanmar border.

Francois Nosten on Fever Pitch podcast, on a collapsing border where medicine meets war

Professor Francois Nosten, Director of MORU's Shoklo Malaria Research Unit (SMRU), reflects on the decades he’s spent on the border between Thailand and Myanmar, a place of relentless upheaval and quiet endurance. From the 1980s onward, he has lived amid war, displacement, and disease, building a fragile bridge between science and survival. He characterizes the border as a wound that never quite closes – people cross not for opportunity but to escape a state that devours its own. What he describes is not steady progress but a cycle of collapse and recovery, every advance shadowed by the return of violence and the onset of disease.

SMRU’s ‘TB Village’: A lifeline for marginalised patients on the Thai–Myanmar border

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Research Spotlight: The IRONMUM Trial at SMRU

IRONMUM is one example of SMRU’s long-standing collaboration with global partners to address critical health challenges in low- and middle-income settings. Through partnerships with institutions such as the University of Oxford and the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU), SMRU conducts research that is firmly grounded in local realities, ensuring that preventive strategies and treatments are effective where they are needed most. Working on the Thailand–Myanmar border since 1986, SMRU combines research, clinical care, and humanitarian action to improve the health of mothers, children, and vulnerable populations affected by infectious diseases and limited access to healthcare.

Analysis of SMRU samples could lead to vaccine for multiple childhood infections

The first large-scale genomic exploration of H. influenzae, a bacteria that causes 200m infections per year in children worldwide, has revealed extensive antibiotic resistance and uncovered genetic clues that could help in future vaccine development, say researchers from Wellcome Sanger Institute, the Universities of Oxford and Oslo, and MORU’s Shoklo Malaria Research Unit (SMRU) and Cambodia-Oxford Medical Research Unit (COMRU).

Rose McGready honoured for her work to improve healthcare for Thai-Myanmar border communities

On 17 Nov at a ceremony in Canberra, Prof Rose McGready, Deputy Director of the Shoklo Malaria Research Unit (SMRU), was honoured with the 2026 ACT Australian of the Year Award for her extraordinary dedication over 30 years to improving healthcare for displaced and marginalised communities along the Thai-Myanmar border which, coupled with clinical and research work that has changed the treatment of malaria around the world, particularly for pregnant and breastfeeding women, has saved the lives of countless mothers and their babies.

Similar stories

Ruam Thai Phatthana 2 Clinic Officially Opens in Phop Phra District

The Ruam Thai Phatthana 2 (RTS) Clinic was officially opened on 24 September 2026 in Ruam Thai Subdistrict, Phop Phra District, Tak Province, marking a new chapter in healthcare services for communities along the Thailand–Myanmar border.

Francois Nosten on Fever Pitch podcast, on a collapsing border where medicine meets war

Professor Francois Nosten, Director of MORU's Shoklo Malaria Research Unit (SMRU), reflects on the decades he’s spent on the border between Thailand and Myanmar, a place of relentless upheaval and quiet endurance. From the 1980s onward, he has lived amid war, displacement, and disease, building a fragile bridge between science and survival. He characterizes the border as a wound that never quite closes – people cross not for opportunity but to escape a state that devours its own. What he describes is not steady progress but a cycle of collapse and recovery, every advance shadowed by the return of violence and the onset of disease.

SMRU’s ‘TB Village’: A lifeline for marginalised patients on the Thai–Myanmar border

In a settlement of bamboo cabins, among mango and jackfruit trees, the Shoklo Malaria Research Unit runs a secluded clinic known as 'TB Village.' Reachable only by dirt roads, this sanctuary provides critical treatment and quarantine for dozens of marginalized Burmese tuberculosis patients. Here, at SMRU, patients receive care for diseases like tuberculosis and malaria. The unit works to heal patients and prevent outbreaks from crossing borders, providing a lifeline of safety.

Research Spotlight: The IRONMUM Trial at SMRU

IRONMUM is one example of SMRU’s long-standing collaboration with global partners to address critical health challenges in low- and middle-income settings. Through partnerships with institutions such as the University of Oxford and the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU), SMRU conducts research that is firmly grounded in local realities, ensuring that preventive strategies and treatments are effective where they are needed most. Working on the Thailand–Myanmar border since 1986, SMRU combines research, clinical care, and humanitarian action to improve the health of mothers, children, and vulnerable populations affected by infectious diseases and limited access to healthcare.

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The first large-scale genomic exploration of H. influenzae, a bacteria that causes 200m infections per year in children worldwide, has revealed extensive antibiotic resistance and uncovered genetic clues that could help in future vaccine development, say researchers from Wellcome Sanger Institute, the Universities of Oxford and Oslo, and MORU’s Shoklo Malaria Research Unit (SMRU) and Cambodia-Oxford Medical Research Unit (COMRU).

Rose McGready honoured for her work to improve healthcare for Thai-Myanmar border communities

On 17 Nov at a ceremony in Canberra, Prof Rose McGready, Deputy Director of the Shoklo Malaria Research Unit (SMRU), was honoured with the 2026 ACT Australian of the Year Award for her extraordinary dedication over 30 years to improving healthcare for displaced and marginalised communities along the Thai-Myanmar border which, coupled with clinical and research work that has changed the treatment of malaria around the world, particularly for pregnant and breastfeeding women, has saved the lives of countless mothers and their babies.