Humanity may face a new dangerous pandemic due to strains of zombie viruses Zombie viruses are called pathogens that were active in the past, but are now frozen. or Methuselah microbes frozen in the permafrost of the Arctic, warn Arctic zombie viruses in Siberia could spark terrifying new pandemic, scientists warn scientists. According to them, a new global emergency may be triggered not by some disease new to science, but by a pathogen from the distant past.
For this reason, scientists have begun planning the creation of an Arctic monitoring network that will detect early cases of diseases caused by ancient microorganisms. It will also provide quarantine and qualified medical care to infected people in an attempt to contain a possible outbreak and prevent infected people from leaving the region.
At the moment, the analysis of pandemic threats is focused on diseases that may occur in the southern regions and then spread to the north. On the contrary, little attention has been paid to an outbreak that can occur in the far north and then spread to the south – and I think this is an omission. There are viruses that can infect people and cause a new outbreak.
This point of view was supported by virologist Marion Koopmans from the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam. She noted: "We don't know which viruses lie in the permafrost, but I think there is a real risk that one of them could trigger an outbreak of, say, an ancient form of polio."
The most important point of permafrost is that it is cold, dark and devoid of oxygen, which is ideal for preserving biological material. You can put yogurt in permafrost and it will still be edible 50,000 years later.
But the permafrost in the world is changing. The upper layers of the planet's main reserves – in Canada, Siberia and Alaska – are melting because climate change disproportionately affects the Arctic. According to meteorologists, the region is warming several times faster than the average growth rate of global warming.
However, the most immediate risk is not the melting of permafrost, but from the disappearance of Arctic sea ice. This process makes it possible to develop shipping, transport links and industry in Siberia. Large-scale mining operations are planned there, during which huge wells will be drilled in the deep permafrost to extract oil and ore. These operations will release a huge amount of pathogens, which, Clavery added.
Koopmans emphasized the same point:
If you look at the history of epidemic outbreaks, you will see that one of the key driving forces has been land-use change. The Nipah virus was spread by fruit bats that humans had driven out of their habitats. Similarly, monkey pox is associated with the spread of urbanization in Africa. And that's what's going to happen in the Arctic: a complete land-use change, and it can be very dangerous.
Scientists believe that permafrost – at the deepest levels – can contain viruses up to a million years old. And they are therefore much older than our species, which appeared about 300,000 years ago.
Our immune system may never have been in contact with some of these microbes, and that's another problem, Clavery added. The scenario of an unknown virus returning to us, which once infected a Neanderthal, although unlikely, is now quite possible.
