Scientists have cautioned about the dangers of viruses that are trapped beneath ice sheets in permafrost areas such as the Arctic in a recent study.
According to a report in The Guardian, the scientists claimed that the thawing permafrost in the Arctic is likely to unleash the “zombie viruses” that can create disastrous worldwide health problems.
Rising temperatures brought on by global warming have increased the threat posed by the zombie virus and caused the frozen ice to melt.
Scientists used some of the samples that were recovered from Siberian permafrost last year in order to gain a better understanding of the risks associated with these viruses. For millennia, these viruses have lain dormant in the earth.
Geneticist Jean-Michel Claverie of Aix-Marseille University stated in an interview with The Guardian that research on pandemic dangers now concentrates on illnesses that could start in the south and move north. On the other hand, I think it’s a mistake that not much has been made of an outbreak that could start in the far north and go south. There are viruses out there that could infect people and cause a fresh wave of sickness.”
“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,” said scientist Marion Koopmans of the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, who concurred with the findings. We must prepare for the possibility that something similar may occur.”
