Scientists have revived a nearly 50,000 year old ‘Zombie’ virus in a record-breaking age for frozen microorganism to return to a stage where it is capable of infecting other organisms. The recent work from scientists at the permafrost of Serbia also included several other viruses that are thousands of years old.
These viruses are emerging after many millennia with the permafrost melting heavily due to the warming of the planet. Microbiologists revived multiple “Zombie viruses” in order to study these microbes that are emerging from beneath.
The nearly 50,000 year old amoeba virus was revived in a study where 13 such microbes were revived. Nine of these viruses are believed to be several thousand years old, as per the study currently in pre-print.
The team led by Jean-Marie Alempic, microbiologist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, also said that these viruses that are being revived can potentially pose a significant public health threat. With the world still reeling from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, such threats cannot be ignored.
The team has called for more study to make an assessment of the risk from such infectious microbes that are coming back to life from their long sleep in ice. The team writes, “Due to climate warming, irreversibly thawing permafrost is releasing organic matter frozen for up to a million years, most of which decompose into carbon dioxide and methane, further enhancing the greenhouse effect.”
The particular 48,500-year-old virus was found below a lake. Some other viruses were retrieved from organisms buried in permafrost like a Siberian wolf and a mammoth. The team’s work proves that these viruses are still capable of being infectious.
"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. 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 scientists wrote, reported LiveScience.
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