Out of the 13 primitive viruses that researchers found, the oldest was an amoeba virus found in stoic dormancy under a lake for 48,500 years, the Weather Channel reported.
In the 2003 Danny Boyle film “28 Days Later,” a virus takes over mankind and spreads around the globe turning humans into the walking dead. Well, you better have taken notes on how to survive because scientists are warning of a “zombie virus” as the world thaws, according to reports.
Scientists from Russia, Germany and France say that another pandemic could happen after a “zombie virus” that had been trapped under a frozen lake in Russia for 50,000 years could emerge as the Earth gets warmer and a thaw occurs, Bloomberg reported.
“The situation would be much more disastrous in the case of plant, animal, or human diseases caused by the revival of an ancient unknown virus,” microbiologist Jean-Marie Alempic from the French National Centre for Scientific Research said in Science Alert, which published the study.
The study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, says that global warming is causing vast swaths of the permafrost to irreversibly thaw. This has had the alarming effect of “releasing organic matter frozen for up to a million years,” which includes potentially harmful pathogens like dormant viruses, the New York Post reported.
“Part of this organic matter also consists of revived cellular microbes (prokaryotes, unicellular eukaryotes) as well as viruses that remained dormant since prehistorical times,” the researchers wrote.
Out of the 13 primitive viruses that researchers found, the oldest was an amoeba virus found in stoic dormancy under a lake for 48,500 years, the Weather Channel reported.
Using live single-cell amoeba cultures, the team determined that all 13 viruses still had the potential to become infectious pathogens, the Weather Channel said.
"It is therefore legitimate to ponder the risk of ancient viral particles remaining infectious and getting back into circulation by the thawing of ancient permafrost layers," the study says.
The permafrost, which is a permanently frozen zone, in this case found in the Northern Hemisphere, has been thawing due to climate change, according to reports. However, what has alarmed these scientists is that the multi-millennia amoebas formerly inside the permafrost remain infectious, which is why they are calling it “zombie viruses.”
“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,” the study read. “But the risk is bound to increase in the context of global warming when permafrost thawing will keep accelerating, and more people will be populating the Arctic in the wake of industrial ventures.”
