Ancient viruses trapped in Arctic ice could unleash deadly new pandemic: ‘tangible threat’

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By Chris Nesi

The melting Arctic permafrost could unleash ancient zombie viruses and trigger a catastrophic global health emergency, concerned scientists say.

“We now face a tangible threat and we need to be prepared to deal with it. It is as simple as that,” geneticist Jean-Michel Claverie, professor emeritus of medicine and genomics at Aix-Marseille University, told The Guardian.

Experts are already working with the University of the Arctic, an international educational and research cooperative, on establishing a monitoring network to help identify cases of diseases caused by the ancient micro-organisms early on — before their spread can spiral out of control.

The network would also provide quarantine facilities and medical services for those infected to help minimize a potential outbreak, including preventing contagious patients from leaving the region.

So-called Methuselah microbes, also known as zombie viruses, are capable of remaining viable for tens of thousands of years encased in the frozen soil, which covers nearly 20% of the Earth’s northern hemisphere.

“The crucial part about permafrost is that it is cold, dark and lacks oxygen, which is perfect for preserving biological material,” Claverie said.

“You could put a yogurt in permafrost and it might still be edible 50,000 years later.”

Scientists believe the deepest layers of permafrost could be preserving viruses that inhabited the Earth up to a million years ago — long before humans’ most ancient ancestors, who it’s believed made their first appearance on the planet some 300,000 years ago.

Modern humans would therefore have no natural immunity against the prehistoric viral invaders.

“Our immune systems may have never been in contact with some of those microbes, and that is another worry,” Claverie told the outlet. “The scenario of an unknown virus once infecting a Neanderthal coming back at us, although unlikely, has become a real possibility.”

The prospect of ancient viruses escaping their icy prisons in the most remote regions of Earth and kicking off a new global pandemic sounds unlikely, but virologists believe there’s at least some room for concern.

“We don’t know what viruses are lying out there in the permafrost but I think there is a real risk that there might be one capable of triggering a disease outbreak – say of an ancient form of polio,” virologist Marion Koopmans of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam told the outlet.

“We have to assume that something like this could happen.”