Scientists say they have revived a “zombie virus” that has been frozen in a lake in Siberia for almost 50,000 years. They have warned that the thawing of permafrost due to climate change could lead to a new public health threat sparking fears of another pandemic.
The scientists named these pathogens “zombie viruses”. The team of researchers from Russia, Germany, and France stated that these viruses continued to remain infectious despite being trapped in a frozen area for ages.
According to Bloomberg, researchers in an article shared with the preprint repository bioRxiv, said that the strain is one of the thirteen viruses that have been found in the study, each one with its genome. Meanwhile, Pandoravirus was discovered at the bottom of Lake Yukechi Alas in Russia while other viruses have been found in the mammoth’s fur or the intestines of the Siberian wolf.
The scientists said the biological risk of reanimating the viruses they studied was “totally negligible” due to the strains they targeted, mainly those capable of infecting amoeba microbes.
The potential revival of a virus that could infect animals or humans is much more problematic, they said, warning that their work can be extrapolated to show the danger is real.
“It is thus likely that ancient permafrost will release these unknown viruses upon thawing,” they wrote in an article posted to the preprint repository bioRxiv that hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed.
“How long these viruses could remain infectious once exposed to outdoor conditions, and how likely they will be to encounter and infect a suitable host in the interval, is yet impossible to estimate.”
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