title: The niche reduction approach: an opportunity for optimal control of infectious diseases in low-income countries?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  During the last century, WHO led public health interventions that resulted in spectacular achievements such as the worldwide eradication of smallpox and the elimination of malaria from the Western world. However, besides major successes achieved worldwide in infectious diseases control, most elimination/control programs remain frustrating in many tropical countries where specific biological and socio-economical features prevented implementation of disease control over broad spatial and temporal scales. Emblematic examples include malaria, yellow fever, measles and HIV. There is consequently an urgent need to develop affordable and sustainable disease control strategies that can target the core of infectious diseases transmission in highly endemic areas.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Meanwhile, although most pathogens appear so difficult to eradicate, it is surprising to realize that human activities are major drivers of the current high rate of extinction among upper organisms through alteration of their ecology and evolution, i.e., their "niche". During the last decades, the accumulation of ecological and evolutionary studies focused on infectious diseases has shown that the niche of a pathogen holds more dimensions than just the immune system targeted by vaccination and treatment. Indeed, it is situated at various intra- and inter- host levels involved on very different spatial and temporal scales. After developing a precise definition of the niche of a pathogen, we detail how major advances in the field of ecology and evolutionary biology of infectious diseases can enlighten the planning and implementation of infectious diseases control in tropical countries with challenging economic constraints.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We develop how the approach could translate into applied cases, explore its expected benefits and constraints, and we conclude on the necessity of such approach for pathogen control in low-income countries.
authors: UMMISCO (UMI 209 IRD-UPMC), Centre IRD-France Nord, 32, avenue Henry Varagnat, 93143 Bondy, Cedex, France. benjamin.roche@ird.fr.
authors: Benjamin
authors: B
authors: Roche
authors: Hélène
authors: H
authors: Broutin
authors: Marc
authors: M
authors: Choisy
authors: Sylvain
authors: S
authors: Godreuil
authors: Guillaume Constantin
authors: GC
authors: de Magny
authors: Yann
authors: Y
authors: Chevaleyre
authors: Jean-Daniel
authors: JD
authors: Zucker
authors: Romulus
authors: R
authors: Breban
authors: Bernard
authors: B
authors: Cazelles
authors: Frédéric
authors: F
authors: Simard
mesh_terms: D003140:Communicable Disease Control / Q000379:methods*; D003906:Developing Countries; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000517:prevention & control; D006801:Humans; D008288:Malaria / Q000517:prevention & control; D008457:Measles / Q000517:prevention & control; D011203:Poverty; D011634:Public Health; D014611:Vaccination; D015004:Yellow Fever / Q000517:prevention & control