Royal Thai Army personnel are screened for malaria and acrub typhus, Cambodian border, Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand.

          The Thai component, AFRIMS is a subordinate command of the Royal Thai Army (RTA), Medical Department. The command conducts the majority of its research and development activities at military medical research institutes, and a minority through contracts and cooperative research and development agreement with universities and other institutions. AFRIMS has a long and outstanding reputation as the military’s premier biomedical research institution in Thailand, focusing primarily on research in the field of military preventive medicine.

          The activities of the AFRIMS are organized into three divisions. The Administration Division is responsible for the management of logistics, correspondence, personnel, finance, transportation and budget. The Division of Research conducts clinical, epidemiological and laboratory studies emphasizing infectious diseases of military importance to include HIV, malaria, scrub typhus, chlamydia, influenza, diarrheal diseases. The Division of Analysis primarily monitors health issues unrelated to communicable diseases that could adversely affect military operations. This Division is also tasked with providing laboratory services and laboratory animals to support biomedical research.

Division of Research

          The HIV epidemic in Thailand, where subtype E is prevalent is one of the most thoroughly documented epidemics in the world. The dramatic rise in HIV infections has been well documented by biannual surveillance in intravenous drug users, blood donors, pregnant women and commercial sex workers. Pre-induction HIV-1 testing is a routine surveillance measure conducted by the RTA. Health evaluations of HIV infected Thai men with known dates of seroconversion after discharge from the RTA provide important information about the natural history of HIV infection, its clinical signs and laboratory correlates. Researchers at AFRIMS from both militaries as well as collaborators from industry and academia are focusing on the development of a preventive vaccine. In 1995-1996, a trial of a gp120 subtype B (the most prevalent clade in North America) vaccine was conducted in Bangkok and Chiang Mai. In 1997-99, the world’s first trial of a non-subtype B HIV vaccine was carried out. Evaluation of "prime-boost" vaccine combinations will be initiated in 1999-2000. The lead vaccine candidate will progress to phase III efficacy testing targeted to begin in 2002. Sophisticated laboratory techniques support all clinical and research efforts.