Authors

M Viana¹;  ¹ University of Glasgow , UK

Discussion

Control interventions via lethal removal of animals that transmit pathogens between hosts is a widely implemented strategy against many human and animal diseases. These interventions can succeed, fail or have unforeseen consequences, which means long-term control relies on understanding the underling mechanisms leading to the observed response of population reduction. Here, I explore how pairing routinely collected data with ecological or epidemiological models can reveal the ecological pathways to intervention outcomes in two systems. First, for malaria control, the bednet Olyset-DUO trialled in Burkina Faso was hypothesized to reduce mosquito populations through two different routes (reduction of adult survival and fecundity) but how it translated to wild populations was undetermined. Our results confirmed the expected demographic impacts but showed these were transient, leading loss of effectiveness. Next, I explored how culling vampire bats against rabies in Peru caused unintended reductions in another potentially zoonotic virus, H18 influenza. Together, these studies highlight that integrating different types of evidence under the same approach can be essential to dissect the impacts of interventions and that this mechanistic understanding can be harnessed towards evidence-based intervention strategies.