Jean-Antoine Rioux

Jean-Antoine Rioux (1925–2017) was a French parasitologist, mainly a specialist of leishmaniasis. He coined the term ecoepidemiology for a discipline combining concepts of ecology and epidemiology to understand parasite transmission patterns and processes. He was a professor at the University of Montpellier and one of the founders of the Société Française de Parasitologie in 1962.

Scientific career

Jean-Antoine Rioux worked on several parasitological diseases, including malaria, plague, schistosomiasis, and leishmaniasis. He led teams in the field in France (Camargue, Languedoc, Roussillon, Cévennes, Corsica) and various countries including Iran, Chad, Tunisia, and Morocco.

Scientific collection Jean-Antoine Rioux collected un impressive number of specimens, mainly phlebotomes, during his career. His collection includes more than 130,000 specimens coming from 10 countries: France, Italy, Spain, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Yemen, Syria, Sudan, and Republic of Congo. The collection is now curated by the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne in France.

Selected publications The most cited paper by Jean-Antoine Rioux is his classification of Leishmania in 1990.