Scientists have warned that humanity is facing the threat of a strange new epidemic. They say ancient viruses frozen in the Arctic permafrost could one day be unleashed by Earth’s warming climate, causing a massive disease outbreak.
Strains of these Methuselah microbes, or zombie viruses as they are also known, have already been isolated by researchers who have expressed fears that a new global medical emergency could be triggered not by a disease new to science, but by a disease from the distant past. .
As a result, scientists began planning an Arctic monitoring network that would detect early cases of a disease caused by ancient microorganisms. Additionally, it will provide quarantine and specialist medical treatment to infected people and prevent infected people from leaving the area in order to control the epidemic.
“Currently, analyzes of pandemic threats focus on diseases that may emerge in southern regions and then spread north,” said geneticist Jean-Michel Claverie of Aix-Marseille University. “In contrast, little attention is given to an epidemic that may originate in the north and move south, and I believe this is an oversight. “There are viruses out there that have the potential to infect humans and start a new disease outbreak.”
This point was supported by virologist Marion Koopmans of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam. “We don’t know what viruses are present in permafrost, but I think there is a real risk that a virus capable of triggering a disease outbreak (for example, an old strain of polio) could exist. “We have to assume that something like this could happen.”
In 2014, Claverie led a team of scientists in Siberia who isolated live viruses and showed that they could still infect single-celled organisms despite being 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 that they were able to infect cultured cells. One virus sample was 48,500 years old.
“The viruses we isolated were only capable of infecting amoebae and posed no risk to humans,” Claverie said. “But this does not mean that other viruses currently frozen in permafrost cannot trigger diseases in humans. “For example, we identified genomic signatures of smallpox virus and herpesviruses, which are well-known human pathogens.”
Permafrost covers one-fifth of the northern hemisphere and consists of soil held at subzero temperatures for long periods of time. Scientists discovered that some layers remained frozen for hundreds of thousands of years.
“The key thing about permafrost is that it is cold, dark and oxygen-deprived, which is perfect for preserving biological material,” Claverie said. Observer last week. “You can put a yogurt in permafrost and it might still be edible 50,000 years later.”
But the world’s permafrost is changing. The upper layers of the planet’s main reserves in Canada, Siberia and Alaska are melting as climate change disproportionately affects the Arctic. According to meteorologists, the region is warming several times faster than the average rate of increase in global warming.
But it’s not the direct melting of permafrost that poses the most immediate risk, Claverie added. “The danger comes from another global warming effect: the disappearance of Arctic sea ice. This allows for increased shipping, traffic and industrial development in Siberia. Massive mining operations are planned and huge holes will be drilled in the deep permafrost to extract oil and ore.
“These operations will release huge amounts of pathogens that are still thriving there. Miners will move in and inhale the viruses. The effects could be catastrophic.”
This point is emphasized by Koopmans. “If you look at the history of epidemics, one of the most important factors was land use change. Nipah virus was spread by fruit bats displaced from their habitat by humans. Similarly, monkeypox has been associated with the spread of urbanization in Africa. And what we are about to witness in the Arctic “That’s what it is: a complete change in land use, and that can be dangerous, as we’ve seen elsewhere.”
Scientists believe that permafrost at its deepest levels may contain viruses that are up to a million years old, and thus may be much older than our own species, which is thought to have emerged around 300,000 years ago.
“Our immune systems may have never come into contact with some of these microbes, and that’s another concern,” Claverie said. “The scenario of an unknown virus infecting a Neanderthal and returning to us has become a real possibility, although very unlikely.”
That’s why Claverie and others are working with UArctic, the University of the Arctic, an international educational network in the polar region, on plans to set up quarantine facilities and provide medical expertise that can detect early cases and treat them locally. infection.
“We are now facing a concrete threat and we need to be prepared to deal with it. It’s that simple.”