[3] Symptoms on cacao include an acute stage showing translucent veinal necrosis of leaves, necrotic or chlorotic spots of leaves, defoliation, and dieback of shoots that rarely leads to seedling death if infected by the Ghanaian isolate.

[7] The virus has been transmitted to numerous diagnostically susceptible host species including Beta vulgaris, Chenopodium amaranticolor, Chenopodium quinoa, Cucumis sativus, Glycine max, Gomphrena globosa, Nicotiana clevelandii, Nicotiana glutinosa, Nicotiana tabacum, Petunia × hybrida, Phaseolus vulgaris, Tetragonia tetragonioides, Theobroma cacao, and Vigna unguiculata, but these plants are not infected in nature.

C. quinoa displays severe tip necrosis 10–12 days post inoculation without systemic infection.

[9] Indexing of the disease occurs when a rootstock is grafted onto a susceptible cacao cultivar and then the plant is examined for symptom development.

has been found in soils of surrounding cacao necrosis disease outbreaks in Ghana, and are seemingly the genus of nematodes involved with transmission.

This does not prevent new spread although spread is greatly reduced due to the limited dispersal of the nematode vector and subsequent monocyclic cycle of disease[5] No resistant strains have been produced, though a resistant cacao tree may be the best possible management option looking forward.

[11][12] A similar transgenic approach taken to combat papaya ringspot virus could work for cacao based on the type of vector transmission.

[14] Withal, the disease has no apparent economic impact to these countries or the chocolate industry as outbreaks are small, localized, and easily controlled by eradication.

[3] The virion differs from traditional Nepovirus characteristics by fractioning into empty protein shells and particles of 12 nm.

The virus is not infective in sap after heating to 65 °C for 10 minutes, dilution to 0.0001 virions, or storage for 7 days at room temperature.