Page 44 - The lraternational Journal of the Royal Society of Thailand.indd

The International Journal of the Royal Society of Thailand
Volume XV-2023

of resources and redeployment of staff, and the need for hygienic precautions
during contact with patients and study participants (Downey et al, 2022). Research
focused on the control of multidrug-resistant falciparum malaria and its elimination
in the Great Mekong Subregion is a competing health priority and could not be stalled
despite the international situation due to COVID-19. In this article, we discuss

the lessons learnt while conducting field research in remote sites in Cambodia during
the COVID-19 pandemic.

History of collaboration between Mahidol, Oxford, and CNM
The Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU) was founded

in 1979 and is a partnership between Thailand’s Mahidol University, based at the
Faculty for Tropical Medicine, Bangkok, and the University of Oxford, UK. It is
funded by the UK’s Wellcome Trust. The MORU Tropical Health Network includes 5
research units and approximately 50 collaborative clinical research sites. Mahidol’s

Faculty of Tropical Medicine, and Oxford’s Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global
Health are both internationally recognised centres of excellence for medical research
into infectious diseases of poverty. In Cambodia, MORU has collaborated for
decades with the Ministry of Health’s National Centre for Parasitology, Entomology

and Malaria Control (CNM) to conduct studies on malaria and other important
infectious diseases. CNM has many roles, among which is the management of a
national village malaria worker program to provide early diagnosis and treatment
to rural populations.

Malaria transmission in Greater Mekong has declined significantly since the
millennium but progress towards elimination is under threat from the emergence
and spread of multidrug-resistant falciparum parasites (van der Pluijm et al, 2019).
Hence, studies to improve treatments and identify elimination strategies are of
urgency to the Cambodia and internationally (von Seidlein et al, 2019).

The Cambodian village malaria worker expansion study

Launched on 2013, the Global Fund’s Regional Artemisinin-resistance Initiative
(RAI) was established as a coordinated response to the emergence of drug-resistant

malaria in the Greater Mekong subregion. The RAI is the major funder of malaria
control and elimination in the region and in the 3 round of funding a grant was
rd
received in late 2020 to implement operational research in Cambodia. This project was
conducted by CNM, MORU and an experienced local NGO Action for Health and
Development (AHEAD). The CAM-VMW study (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:

NCT05045547) aimed to expand the role of VMWs to cover more than just malaria and

Sustaining Health Research During the COVID-19 Pandemic:
36 Lessons from Field Sites in Rural Cambodia