Malaria Consortium opened an office in Thailand in March 2008 to act as the regional headquarters for the Asia region. It is an ideal location to help monitor the incidence of malaria in the six countries around the Mekong River in Southeast Asia – Thailand, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Vietnam and Yunnan Province of China. It is here that the disease remains a serious problem among certain high-risk populations. Major advances have been made to reduce the burden of malaria in the region and it is critical that this progress is not lost.

 

With support from the  Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Round 10, Malaria Consortium is working closely with the Thai National Malaria Control Programme at the national and provincial levels, as well as with local NGOs along Thai-Myanmar and Thai-Cambodia border, to manage artemisinin resistance and work towards malaria elimination. The programme has been developed as one of the main initiatives to tackle resistance, with Malaria Consortium leading the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) component to ensure effective implementation.

In addition to supporting the national M&E and surveillance system, we also provide technical support for the development and revision of a behaviour change communications strategy for Thailand. More recently, we have been piloting positive deviance approach as a tool for community engagement and mobilisation. Malaria Consortium also periodically conducts large scale surveys to monitor the impact and track the progress of the programme.