This review provides a summary of the recently ratified changes to genus and species nomenclature within the virus familyFlaviviridae along with reasons for these changes. First, it was considered that the vernacular terms “flaviviral”, “flavivirus”, and “flaviviruses” could under certain circumstances be ambiguous due to the same word stem “flavi” in the taxon namesFlaviviridae andFlavivirus; these terms could either have referred to all viruses classified in the familyFlaviviridae or only to viruses classified in the included genusFlavivirus. To remove this ambiguity, the genus nameFlavivirus was changed toOrthoflavivirus by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV). Second, all species names in the family were changed to adhere to a newly ICTV-mandated binomial format (e.g.,Orthoflavivirus zikaense,Hepacivirus hominis) similar to nomenclature conventions used for species elsewhere in biology. It is important to note, however, that virus names remain unchanged. Here we outline the revised taxonomy of the familyFlaviviridae as approved by the ICTV in April 2023.

Not applicable.

We thank Anya Crane (NIH NIAID DCR IRF-Frederick) for critically editing the manuscript.

This work was supported in part through Laulima Government Solutions, LLC, prime Contract No. HHSN272201800013C with the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). J.H.K. performed this work as an employee of Tunnell Government Services (TGS), a subcontractor of Laulima Government Solutions, LLC, under Contract No. HHSN272201800013C. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or of the institutions and companies affiliated with the authors.

Authors and Affiliations

1. Vaccine Design and Development Laboratory, International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, Brooklyn, NY, USA

   Thomas S. Postler

2. Institute of Diagnostic Virology, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Greifswald, Insel Riems, Germany

   Martin Beer

3. Department of Veterinary Microbiology and Preventive Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA

   Bradley J. Blitvich

4. Copenhagen Hepatitis C Program (CO-HEP), Department of Infectious Diseases, Copenhagen University Hospital Hvidovre, Hvidovre, Denmark

   Jens Bukh

5. CO-HEP, Department of Immunology and Microbiology, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

   Jens Bukh

6. Unité des Virus Émergents (Aix-Marseille Univ-IRD 190-Inserm 1207), Marseille, France

   Xavier de Lamballerie

7. Institute of Virology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Corporate Member of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany

   J. Felix Drexler

8. School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Western Australia, Nedlands, WA, Australia

   Allison Imrie

9. Center for Vaccines and Immunity, The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA

   Amit Kapoor

10. Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine and Public Health, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    Amit Kapoor

11. Laboratory of Biology of Arboviruses, FSASI “Chumakov Federal Scientific Center for Research and Development of Immune-and-Biological Products of RAS” (Chumakov Institute of Poliomyelitis and Viral Encephalitides), Moscow, Russia

    Galina G. Karganova (Карганова Галина Григорьевна)

12. Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Rega Institute, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Philippe Lemey

13. Department of Infectious Diseases, Molecular Virology, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany

    Volker Lohmann

14. Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Peter Simmonds & Donald B. Smith

15. Medicine Service, Iowa City Veterans Administration Healthcare, Iowa City, IA, USA

    Jack T. Stapleton

16. Departments of Internal Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA

    Jack T. Stapleton

17. Integrated Research Facility at Fort Detrick (IRF-Frederick), Division of Clinical Research (DCR), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH), B-8200 Research Plaza, Fort Detrick, Frederick, MD, 21702, USA

    Jens H. Kuhn

Corresponding author

Correspondence toJens H. Kuhn.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Handling Editor: Sead Sabanadzovic.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Martin Beer, Bradley J. Blitvich, Jens Bukh, Xavier de Lamballerie, J. Felix Drexler, Allison Imrie, Amit Kapoor, Galina G. Karganova, Philippe Lemey, Volker Lohmann, Peter Simmonds, Donald B. Smith, Jack T. Stapleton: The members of the 2020–2023 International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV)Flaviviridae Study Group.

Reprints and permissions