Rising temperatures in the Arctic are thawing the region’s permafrost — a frozen layer of soil beneath the earth — and potentially reawakening the “zombie virus” that has been dormant for tens of thousands of years.
Permafrost spans one-fifth of the Northern Hemisphere and has long supported the Arctic tundra and boreal forests of Alaska, Canada, and Russia. It functions as a time capsule, preserving — in addition to ancient infections.
Scientists Revive ‘Zombie’ Virus
Jean-Michel Claverie, Emeritus Professor of Medicine and Genomics at Aix-Marseille University Faculty of Medicine in Marseille, France, examines a virus he identified in 2003.
They are known as giant viruses because they are significantly larger than the ordinary variety and can be seen with a regular light microscope rather than a more powerful electron microscope — making them an excellent example for this type of lab work.
His efforts to detect viruses frozen in permafrost were inspired in part by a group of Russian scientists who regenerated a wildflower from 30,000-year-old seed tissue discovered in a squirrel’s burrow in 2012.
In 2014, he succeeded in making a virus identified from permafrost contagious for the first time in 30,000 years by putting it into cultivated cells.
In 2015, he duplicated the accomplishment by isolating a new virus that also targeted amoebas.
Permafrost has been found to contain traces of viruses and bacteria that can infect people. A lung sample recovered from permafrost in a town on Alaska’s Seward Peninsula in 1997 contains genetic material from the influenza strain responsible for the 1918 pandemic.
Scientists confirmed in 2012 that the genetic traces of the virus that causes smallpox were found in the 300-year-old mummified bones of a lady buried in Siberia.
The anthrax epidemic in Siberia in 2016 that sickened dozens of humans and over 2,000 reindeer has also been related to deeper permafrost thawing during particularly hot summers, allowing old Bacillus anthracis spores to resurface from old burial grounds or animal carcasses.
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Possibilities Of Viral Spread
In the actual world, scientists don’t know how long these viruses could remain infectious after being exposed to modern settings, or how likely the virus would be to encounter a compatible host.
Not all viruses are pathogens capable of causing disease; some are even useful to their hosts. And, despite its 3.6 million inhabitants, the Arctic remains a sparsely populated region, lowering the likelihood of human exposure to old viruses.
In the actual world, scientists don’t know how long these viruses could remain infectious after being exposed to modern settings, or how likely the virus would be to encounter a compatible host.
Not all viruses are pathogens capable of causing disease; some are even useful to their hosts. And, despite its 3.6 million inhabitants, the Arctic remains a sparsely populated region, lowering the likelihood of human exposure to old viruses.
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