Reminder. Just because the abbreviation of a term is made up of capitals, it does not mean that the term has capitals when it is spelt out (eg TMV is spelt out Tobacco mosaic virus, not Tobacco Mosaic Virus).
Virus names are commonly abbreviated but should be given in full at first mention. The abbreviation is not italicised and is specific to the publication in which it occurs (attempts to produce a formal list of acronyms have failed because so many are required that the list becomes clumsy):
Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) Rous sarcoma virus (RSV) Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)
For virus names that include a number, use a hyphen between the number and the abbreviation:
Human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1)
