{{Short description|Species of virus}} An '''orphan virus''' is a virus that is not associated with a disease but may possess pathogenicity.<ref name=li >Li L, Delwart E. From orphan virus to pathogen: the path to the clinical lab. Current Opin Virol. 2011 Oct;1(4):282-8. doi: 10.1016/j.coviro.2011.07.006.</ref>
Gilbert Dalldorf, a pathologist who showed that Coxsackie viruses paralyze mice but not humans, indicated that the term ‘orphan’ was created "in a moment of conviviality" by a group of virologists.<ref>Mortimer, Philip P. "Orphan Viruses, Orphan Diseases: Still the Raw Material for Virus Discovery." Reviews in Medical Virology 23.6 (2013): 337-39. Web.</ref>
Many enteroviruses are referred to as ECHO, enteric cytopathic human orphan viruses, because they were originally not associated with any disease.<ref name=li />
==See also== * Novel virus * Reoviridae * Viral metagenomics
==References== {{reflist}}
Category:Viruses Category:Zoonotic viral diseases Category:Virology
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