Ratification vote on taxonomic proposals to the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (2012)

Excerpt

In accordance with the Statutes of the International Committee of Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV), the final stage in the process of making changes to the Universal Scheme of Virus Classification is the ratification of taxonomic proposals by ICTV members. This can occur either at a plenary meeting of ICTV, held during an International Congress of Virology conference, or by circulation of proposals by mail followed by a ballot. As in recent years, a list of proposals that had been subjected to the full, multi-stage review process was prepared and presented on the ICTVonline web pages by January 2012. This review process involved input from the ICTV study groups and subcommittees, other interested virologists, and the ICTV Executive Committee. These proposals were submitted to and discussed by the ICTV Executive Committee over the past two years and represent changes to virus taxonomy from that recently published in the Ninth Report [1]. The ratification process was performed entirely by email. The proposals were sent electronically via email on January 24 2012 to ICTV Executive Committee Members (18), Life Members (11), ICTV Subcommittee Members (105), and ICTV National Representatives (55). Members were then requested to vote on whether or not to ratify the taxonomic proposals, within a four-week deadline (voting closed on February 21, 2012). …