[Leish-l] load or burden?

MOMEN, Hooman momenh at who.int
Tue Mar 21 18:24:11 BRT 2017


  When describing  a disease, burden is the preferred term e.g. "Burden of disease". When describing an infectious agent, I would use load e.g. Viral load or parasite load, However either  term could be used.

RegardsHooman Momen
 

Sent from iPad


 

On Mar 18, 2017, at 6:35 PM, Carlos Costa <chncosta at gmail.com> wrote:


 Dear colleagues,
 

 I am finishing a paper and got stuck with the use of the terms load or burden to define the amount of Leishmania infantum in a vertebrate host.
 

 I used the term burden. A professional translating company started to use load instead but finally led both terms in the text.
 

 Looking at the Websters dictionary, I could not find differences between them (in the sense we used in the paper).
 

 However, when looking at PubMed the terms were used differently, depending on the type of organism. The statistics were:
 HIV burden: 6,230; HIV load: 23,266
 HCV burden: 1,040; HCV load: 4,904
 Plasmodium burden: 978; Plasmodium load: 465
 Leishmania burden: 691; Leishmania load: 651
 

 Is the question is irrelevant and are both terms interchageable or one is better for viruses while the other is better for parasites? Do the PubMed votes matter or is democracy a fools' realm?
 

 Is it less elegant to use both in a text or should just one be used in each paper/situation?
 

 Provoking specially the English speaking colleagues (but not only them)!
 

 Cheers,
 

 Carlos.
 

 -- 
Carlos H. N. Costa, MD, DSc.
 Chefe/Head
Departamento de Medicina Comunitária
Centro de Ciências da Saúde
Coordenador/Coordinator
 Laboratório de Leishmanioses - LabLeish
 Instituto de Doenças Tropicais Natan Portella

 Universidade Federal do Piauí

 Rua Artur de Vasconcelos 151-Sul
 64001-450 Teresina-PI
 Brazil
 Telephones: +55 86 3222-4377 (W), +55 86 3221-3062 (W), 
 
 +55 86 3237-1075 (R). 
 
 



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