NAMRU-3 basic science, epidemiologic, and clinical investigations have included numerous tropical and subtropical infectious diseases such as enteric diseases, acute respiratory infections, hepatitis, tuberculosis, meningitis, HIV, and various parasitic, rickettsial, and arboviral infections that are endemic and important public health problems to the region.

Research partnerships exist with the countries of Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Syria, Sudan, and the Republics of Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan.

NAMRU-3 was informally established in Egypt in 1942 when the U.S. Typhus Commission placed a research laboratory staffed by American military scientists and technicians to work with Egyptian physicians adjoining Abbassia Fever Hospital, Cairo, Egypt, thus averting a serious typhus outbreak in the city during and following World War II.

Working with the Egyptian ministry of Health, initial diseases studied included brucellosis, cholera, meningitis, schistosomiasis, smallpox and tick-borne illnesses.

Dr. Harry Hoogstraal founded the Department of Medical Zoology in 1949 and amassed the world's largest collection of ticks at NAMRU-3, almost 600 unique species from over 160 countries.

In 1962 NAMRU-3 investigators described the natural infection cycle of West Nile fever, which involves mosquitoes and birds as primary vectors and hosts.

In 1999, the US Department of Defense Global Emerging Infections System (GEIS) program was established which expanded NAMRU-3's mandate to include public health activities and capacity building in host countries.