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Scientists have warned that humanity is facing a bizarre new pandemic threat as the melting Arctic permafrost could release the ‘zombie viruses’, causing a major disease outbreak and new global medical emergency, according to a report published by The Guardian.
Consequently, researchers have started developing an Arctic surveillance system to identify early instances of a disease brought on by archaic microbes. To contain an outbreak and stop sick individuals from fleeing the area, it would also offer quarantine and professional medical care to those who are ill.
Geneticist Jean-Michel Claverie of Aix-Marseille University said, “At the moment, analyses of pandemic threats focus on diseases that might emerge in southern regions and then spread north.”
“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,” he said as quoted by The Guardian.
Virologist Marion Koopmans of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam agreed with the same and said, “We don’t know what viruses are lying out there in the permafrost.”
“However, 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,” Koopmans added.
Scientists led by Claverie discovered live viruses in Siberia in 2014, demonstrating that the viruses could still infect single-celled organisms despite being thousands of years old and buried in permafrost.
Further, in a follow-up study that was published the previous year, it was discovered that seven distinct Siberian locations had multiple distinct viral strains that could infect cultured cells. A virus sample with 48,500 years on it was given.
“The viruses we isolated were only able to infect amoebae and posed no risk to humans. 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,” said Claverie.
A fifth of the northern hemisphere is covered in permafrost, which is composed of soil that has been kept at temperatures below zero for extended periods. Scientists have found that some layers have stayed frozen for hundreds of thousands of years, The Guardian reported.
Claverie further stated the crucial point about permafrost is that it is cold, dark, and lacks oxygen, which is perfect for preserving biological material.
However, permafrost is evolving globally. Alaska, Siberia, and Canada contain the upper layers of the planet’s primary reserves, which are melting as a result of the Arctic being disproportionately affected by climate change.
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Published: 23 Jan 2024, 11:58 AM IST
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