Recently agreed changes to the International Code of Virus Classification and Nomenclature

Abstract

The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV; http://www.ictvonline.org/) is a committee of Virology Division of the International Union of Microbiological Societies, and its operation is governed by Statutes agreed with Virology Division. The classification and nomenclature of viruses is then subject to rules formalized into a Code (required by Statute 8.1). The need for a review of the Statutes and Code became clear during editorial work involved in production of the Ninth ICTV Report [1]. Changes to these documents require the approval of the ICTV Executive Committee (EC) and the full ICTV membership. Changes to the Statutes also require the agreement of Virology Division. The changes described in this article were discussed and agreed by the ICTV EC over a period of more than two years. Notification of a ballot was sent via email on 14 January 2013 to the 165 members of ICTV, namely the ICTV EC Members, Life Members, ICTV Subcommittee Members and ICTV National Representatives. Members were then requested to vote on whether or not to ratify the proposals (voting closed on 14 February 2013). The return rate of votes was approximately 41%, and all proposed changes were accepted, mostly unanimously. The only significant exception was the proposed change to the species definition in Rule 3.21 (Rule 3.20 in the latest version of the code) which was approved by 45:21 with two abstentions. In this article, we present the new version of the Code, highlighted in bold to show those parts that have recently been changed. Those changes are then explained in the sections that follow. It should be noted that some rules were deleted and that some renumbering of sections has therefore taken place. In recent years, the Code has been published with some explanatory Comments from the EC, and the opportunity has been taken to revise and update these where necessary. The changes to the Statutes are the subject of a separate article [2].