Scientists have recently warned about the melting permafrost in the Arctic that holds the zombie virus. And, once unleashed, it may have deadly affect all across the globe.
The word ‘pandemic’ in itself is riddled with panic, anxiety, and the question – are we ready? Recently, scientists have warned about another virus that may pose the risk of a pandemic. Viruses like the ‘zombie virus’ have been frozen in permafrost for nearly 48, 500 years and the melting of this ice in the Arctic can be perilous.
Zombie viruses also known as Methuselah microbes have long been isolated by several researchers. These deadly viruses were isolated in the first place as these could trigger a medical emergency. Since scientists this is no news for the scientists community, they have already begun monitoring such permafrost accordingly.
According to a report by The Guardian, “At the moment, analyses of pandemic threats focus on diseases that might emerge in southern regions and then spread north,” said geneticist Jean-Michel Claverie of Aix-Marseille University. “By contrast, little attention has been given to an outbreak that might emerge in the far north and then travel south – and that is an oversight, I believe. There are viruses up there that have the potential to infect humans and start a new disease outbreak.”
What is permafrost? Permafrost is the soil or underwater sediment that constantly remains at a freezing point mostly below -0 degrees elcius. For over two years. a fifth of the northern hemisphere is also covered with this layer, however, the layers are changing due to the melting of ice sheets owing to exponentially increasing global warming, and climate change.
ALL ABOUT THE ZOMBIE VIRUS
A team of scientists led by Claverie in 2014, isolated the viruses in in Siberia and showed they could still infect single-cell organisms – even though they had been buried in permafrost for thousands of years. Further research, published last year, revealed the existence of several different viral strains from seven different sites in Siberia and showed these could infect cultured cells. One virus sample was 48,500 years old.
Scientists believe that permafrost – at its deepest levels – may contain viruses that are up to a million years old and so will be far older than our own species, which is thought to have emerged about 300,000 years ago.
“Our immune systems may have never been in contact with some of those microbes, and that is another worry,” said Claverie. “The scenario of an unknown virus once infecting a Neanderthal coming back at us, although unlikely, has become a real possibility.”
“The viruses we isolated were only able to infect amoebae and posed no risk to humans,” said Claverie. “However, that does not mean that other viruses – currently frozen in the permafrost – might not be able to trigger illnesses in humans. We have identified genomic traces of poxviruses and herpesviruses, which are well known human pathogens, for example.”