Researchers claim that melting ice and warming permafrost have the potential to unleash a ‘Pandora’s box’ of pathogens.
OVER the past few years, researchers have recognised that global warming may increase the risk of disease spread by pathogens such as viruses and bacteria.
There is no doubt that climate change is exacerbating existing diseases, but it may also bring with it new illnesses involving strains of ancient dangerous pathogens that could be even more threatening to humans in the future.
As if we don’t have enough already, scientists have unearthed pathogens trapped in permafrost and termed them zombie viruses.
If there’s anything the recent Covid-19 outbreak proved, it was that what can’t be seen is often the most dangerous.
According to reports by CNN, a French professor named Jean-Michel Claverie discovered strains of the 48,000-year-old frozen virus in permafrost in Siberia, Russia.
The youngest samples were 27,000 years old, while the oldest strain, which dated back 48,500 years, came from a sample of soil from an underground lake.
The researchers examined ancient virus samples collected from the permafrost and they confirmed that the virus remained active even though it had been lying dormant for so long.
The thawing of ancient permafrost due to climate change may pose a new threat to humans, according to researchers who revived nearly two dozen viruses.
The fact that the amoeba-infecting viruses were still contagious after all these years was a sign of a potential wider issue, lead researcher Claverie told CNN.
He said he worried that people would not take his work seriously and would not see the possibility of extinct diseases resurfacing as a serious threat to public health.
According to Birgitta Evengrd, professor emerita at Umea University’s Department of Clinical Microbiology in Sweden, our immune defence has evolved in close contact with the microbiological environment.
However, our immune defence may be insufficient against these ‘new’ pathogens, so it’s important to take preventive measures rather than responding only when something goes wrong.
Researchers claim that melting ice and warming permafrost have the potential to unleash a “Pandora’s box” of pathogens.
They admit that they do not yet know how these bacteria will interact with the environment, but it is nevertheless important to investigate their potential to influence soil composition and vegetative growth, perhaps worsening the effects of climate change.
Studies on frozen viruses, such as Claverie’s, are helping scientists to better understand how these ancient viruses behave and whether they are a danger to animals and people.
