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Early virus classification was based on the diseases caused by viruses. This included the tissues they infected, how they infected the tissue and how they could be passed on during an infection (transmitted). Today, viruses are assigned into a heirarchy (a ranked series) by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV; originally the International Committee on Nomenclature of Viruses) as well as speciality groups and culture collections. The latter groups are closely involved in classifying at the species level. The ICTV makes this data available through its online, universal virus database (ICTVdB). This Universal Scheme places viruses into the following named groupings: Order subspecies/strain/variant/isolate ...based upon multiple viral characteristics. Currently (Sixth Report of the ICTV) there is one order, 71 families, 9 subfamilies, 164 genera and more than 3600 species of virus. The correct use of this terminology is important to avoid confusion. Members of a Genus/Family/Subfamily have an initial capital letter and are italicised, or underlined. Species do not use an initial capital letter unless referring to a person's or Genus/Family/Subfamily name, nor are they italicised. Additionally, the taxon name (Genus/Family/Subfamily) should precede the taxonimic unit (species/subspecies/strain/variant/isolate). For example..
Virus taxonomy has steered away from the Latinised binomial system adopted in the 18th century and applied to the taxonomy of biological systems by Karl von Linné (Carolus Linneaus). Because taxon and taxonomic unit names are sometimes the same, confusion results when virus names are written in short-hand or used incorrectly in conversation. Such omissions can be avoided by adding the taxon information eg blah is a species of the Genus xxxvirus, Family xxxviridae. Additional detail describing Order/Subfamily is unecessary as this places the virus into a clear taxonomic position. |
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