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Draft:Virus nomenclature Virus nomenclature

This is a list of virus species that abrogate the World Health Organization (WHO) best practices for the naming of new human infectious diseases.

The WHO guidelines concern the names of diseases, which are caused by viruses, bacteria, and other microbes, but do not cover the names of species, genera, and other taxa. The WHO guidelines also apply to new human diseases. They do not apply retroactively to diseases that are already named, nor do they apply to infectious diseases that only affect non-human animals, plants, fungi, or other organisms.

The names of viruses are designated under the authority of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV). Viruses infect all kinds of organisms, and many were named well before the WHO guidelines were developed. However, new species are named every year, and old names are changed as the taxonomy of viruses becomes clearer. There is also a potential for known viruses to become zoonoses and jump the species barrier to infect humans, leading to a novel infection and potential conflict with the WHO guidelines.

While there is often overlap, the name of a disease can be totally different from the name of the organism that caused it. The diseases COVID-19 and AIDS are caused by the viruses Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 and HIV respectively. Additionally, the ICTV differentiate the names of viruses from the names of species and other taxa. Viruses are the physical organisms, while the species are the concepts used to categorize viruses.

The WHO guidelines specify the following things to be avoided in the names of novel human infections:
 * Geographic locations: Cities, countries, regions, continents
 * Middle East Respiratory Syndrome
 * Spanish Flu
 * Rift Valley fever
 * Lyme disease
 * Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever
 * Japanese encephalitis


 * People’s names
 * Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
 * Chagas disease


 * Species/class of animal or food
 * Swine flu
 * bird flu
 * monkey pox
 * equine encephalitis
 * paralytic shellfish poisoning


 * Cultural, population, industry or occupational references
 * Occupational
 * legionnaires
 * miners
 * butchers
 * cooks
 * nurses


 * Terms that incite undue fear
 * Unknown
 * death
 * fatal
 * epidemic