Melting Arctic ice in Siberia may release ancient “zombie” viruses, posing a potential global health crisis, leading scientists have recently warned.Geneticist Jean-Michel Claverie, professor emeritus of medicine and genomics at Aix-Marseille University,told The Guardian: “We now face a tangible threat, and we need to be prepared to deal with it. It is as simple as that.”
HighlightsMelting Arctic ice in Siberia may release ancient “zombie” viruses, posing a potential global health crisisPermafrost is any ground that remains completely frozen, 32°F (0°C) or colder, for at least two years straightExperts have been collaborating with the University of the Arctic on organizing a surveillance network to help minimize a potential outbreakThe zombie viruses, scientifically recognized as Methuselah microbes, are capable of remaining viable for tens of thousands of years encased in the frozen soil
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has already reported that the Arctic’s average temperature has risen at a rate three times higher than the global average and is the region with the highest rate of averagetemperature change.
Melting Arctic ice in Siberia may release ancient “zombie” viruses, posing a potential global health crisis
Image credits:Jean-Michel Claverie/IGS/CNRS-AM
The zombie viruses, scientifically recognized as Methuselah microbes, are reportedly capable of remaining viable for tens of thousands of years encased in the frozen soil, which covers nearly 20% of the Earth’s northern hemisphere.
Permafrost is any ground that remains completely frozen, 32°F (0°C) or colder, for at least two years straight
Image credits:Freepik
Professor Claverie said: “The crucial part about permafrost is that it is cold, dark, and lacks oxygen, which is perfect for preserving biological material.
“You could put a yogurt in permafrost, and it might still be edible 50,000 years later.”
According toNASA, permafrost is any ground that remains completely frozen, 32°F (0°C) or colder, for at least two years straight.
Experts have been collaborating with the University of the Arctic on organizing a surveillance network to help minimize a potential outbreak
Image credits:James Cheney
“Huge mining operations are being planned and are going to drive vast holes into the deep permafrost to extract oil and ores.
“Those operations will release vast amounts of pathogens that still thrive there. Miners will walk in and breathe the viruses. The effects could be calamitous.”
“We now face a tangible threat and we need to be prepared to deal with it. It is as simple as that,” geneticist Jean-Michel Claverie said
Image credits:NASEM Health and Medicine Division
Scientists reportedly believe that the deepest layers of permafrost could be preserving viruses that inhabited the Earth up to a million years ago, meaning long before humans’ most ancient ancestors, who are believed to have made their first appearance on the planet some 300,000 years ago.
As a result, if there were to be a zombie virus outbreak, we would have no natural immunity to defend ourselves against it.
Professor Claverie explained: “Our immune systems may have never been in contact with some of those microbes, and that is another worry.
“The scenario of an unknown virus once infecting a Neanderthal coming back at us, although unlikely, has become a real possibility.”
The zombie viruses, scientifically recognized as Methuselah microbes, are capable of remaining viable for tens of thousands of years encased in the frozen soil
Image credits:cottonbro studio
Despite the chances of such prehistoric organisms breaking out of their frozen habitat in the most remote regions of Earth to start a new global pandemic remaining unlikely, virologists believe there’s at least some room for concern, as per The Post.
Virologist Marion Koopmans of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam revealed: “We don’t know what viruses are lying out there in the permafrost, but I think there is a real risk that there might be one capable of triggering a disease outbreak, say of an ancient form of polio.
“We have to assume that something like this could happen.”
“Here we go again,” a reader quipped
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