Virus taxonomy: the database of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV)

The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) was established in 1966. ICTV classifies viruses according to the type of host they infect (animal, plants, fungi and protists, or bacteria and archaea) and the molecular makeup of their genome (DNA, RNA, double or single stranded and translation polarity). ICTV is responsible not only for determining virus classification, but also for disseminating these decisions to scientific community. ICTV maintains a database that stores virus classifications, taxonomy names, and related metadata, including information on representative viruses of each nomenclature, which provides a complete description of all defined virus taxonomies. No other database or resource provides a comprehensive, fully annotated collection of information on virus classification.
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