What is Zombie Virus Trapped in Arctic Ice? Here is What We Know
Producer: Mehak Pal
According to several media reports, the melting Arctic permafrost could unleash ancient zombie viruses and trigger a catastrophic global health emergency.
What is a zombie virus?Zombie viruses are those viruses that can remain viable for tens of thousands of years encased in frozen soil. They can spread diseases and modern humans have no natural immunity against these prehistoric viral invaders.
Zombie viruses are also known as Methuselah microbes.
Experts at the University of the Arctic are working on establishing a monitoring network to help identify cases of diseases caused by the ancient micro-organisms before their spread can roll out of control.
It will also provide quarantine and expert medical treatment for infected people in a bid to contain an outbreak. It will also prevent people from leaving the region.
Geneticist Jean-Michel Claverie of Aix-Marseille University shared that adequate attention should be given to outbreaks “that might emerge in the far north and then travel south.”
In 2014, Claverie with other researchers isolated live viruses in Siberia and showed they could still infect single-cell organisms.
Research conducted in 2023 showed several different viral strains from seven different sites in Siberia could infect cultured cells and one virus sample was 48,500 years old.