The role of chemotherapy in early malaria control and eradication programmes in Thailand

The use of synthetic antimalarial compounds played a secondary role to the use of residual insecticides in post World War II antimalarial control and eradication campaigns. The discovery of chloroquine-resistant malaria in South East Asia and South America prompted an intensification of antimosquito measures, rather than a thorough investigation of resistance. It was the failure of the antimosquito measures which primarily called a halt to malaria eradication and a return to control. A focus on the role of synthetic antimalarials in Thailand thus aims to provide a complementary view to those histories being constructed around the antimosquito measures.