Courtesy Photo | From 19 February to 26 March 2026, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research –...... read more read more
Subscribe
The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research – Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences conducted real-time infectious disease surveillance from 19 Feb to 26 March in support of Cobra Gold 2026 to advance force health protection, enhance interoperability, and strengthen the U.S. and Royal Thai Armed Forces partnership.
Cobra Gold is one of the largest military exercises in the Indo-Pacific, co-hosted by the United States and Thailand, and involving participation from 30 countries. The exercise is designed to improve the interoperability and readiness of the allied nations and enhance their collective capabilities to potential security concerns.
WRAIR-AFRIMS supported the exercise by conducting two forms of disease surveillance: collecting and screening rodents, mites, and ticks for vector-borne diseases and analyzing samples from U.S. personnel to detect diarrheal and respiratory diseases to support outbreak detection. In addition, WRAIR-AFRIMS also conducts pre-exercise surveillance that informs leaders on appropriate force health protection measures for implementation among rotational forces prior to the start of Cobra Gold.
“Infectious diseases are responsible for a significant portion of sick-call visits in the Indo-Pacific and can be a huge drain on the fighting force,” said Maj. Sidhartha Chaudhury, Deputy Chief of Bacterial and Parasitic Diseases at WRAIR-AFRIMS. “Disease surveillance identifies these issues while they are occurring and informs protective measures to mitigate infection in the future.”
WRAIR-AFRIMS’s biosurveillance team works in tandem with Role 1 medical providers who collect samples from service members showing symptoms. The biosurveillance team takes these samples back to their field lab to analyze the samples and provide regular updates on force health trends to the exercise leadership.
“It’s educational and inspiring to see how operational medicine and field research teams can work together to protect force health,” said Chaudhury. “Cobra Gold 2026 demonstrated that not only can our biosurveillance team do this without creating an additional burden in the field, but also that we provide information that is of real value to leadership.”
WRAIR-AFRIMS continues to analyze the data collected from Cobra Gold 2026 to inform force health protection decisions as it prepares for further infectious disease surveillance in support of other military exercises in the Indo-Pacific, such as Balikatan in the Philippines and Talisman Sabre in Australia.
To learn more about WRAIR-AFRIMS such as our disease surveillance and other capabilities, visit the website at https://afrims.health.mil/
| Date Taken: | 04.29.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 04.29.2026 09:41 |
| Story ID: | 563880 |
| Location: | TH |
| Web Views: | 61 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, WRAIR-AFRIMS provides infectious disease surveillance in support of Cobra Gold 2026, by Zeke Gonzalez, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
