2024-01-25 13:15:24
The warning from a group of French scientists about the arrival of a global pandemic due to the ‘zombie virus’ puts the serious consequences of global warming on the table. This is mainly because, according to the theory of lead researcher Jean-Michel Claverie, the permafrost is thawing and could give rise to infectious diseases that would also be resistant to antibiotics. Are we facing a real danger?
The dangers of thawing permafrost
The professor of microbiology in the Department of Microbiology of the Autonomous University of Madrid, José Antonio López, explains that the populations near these large areas located in the Arctic and Sub-Arctic are the first to suffer the consequences of global warming. Permafrost is a frozen area that is several meters deep in the polar regions. The result of the research by the group of French scientists clarifies that there are viruses in that layer that have been ‘sleeping’ for hundreds of thousands of years, although they could be released in the future and cause an epidemic.
“The first direct danger for us is that, as the permafrost thaws, the terrain becomes much more unstable and is a real danger for populations that are settled on this terrain, because buildings can directly collapse and sink into the ground. softer due to this thawing,” underlines López.
The virologist gives the example of what happened during the so-called ‘Spanish flu’ of 1918. Through molecular biology techniques used with a corpse preserved in the permafrost of Alaska, it was possible to reconstruct and characterize the virus that killed thousands of people that year. “It is not so easy for them to become viable again by thawing them, but the possibility of that happening is not zero,” warns José Antonio López.
Therefore, pathogens that are “no longer circulating” could emerge again with global warming. According to data from the United Nations meteorological organization, 2023 was the warmest year on record. The average temperature was 1.45 degrees above the levels of pre-industrial times (1850-1900).
Would permafrost pathogens be resistant to current antibiotics?
“It is a real health and environmental concern,” explains López when referring to the permafrost thawing process.
Another aspect to take into account is whether or not the ‘zombie virus’ would be resistant to antibiotics. The question is highly complex, but virologist José Antonio López points out that “it is possible that bacteria that have been frozen for thousands of years could be resistant to current antibiotics.”
In fact, the researchers who have warned about this ‘zombie virus’ consider that “bacteria carrying antibiotic resistance genes seem to be surprisingly prevalent in permafrost,” according to what they say in the publication of the study in the journal Viruses.
The alert about the ‘zombie virus’
The geneticist from the University of Marseille Jean-Michel Claverie has announced that humanity is close to experiencing a new pandemic due to the arrival of a virus frozen in the permafrost of Siberia.
“At the moment, analyzes of pandemic threats focus on diseases that could emerge in southern regions and then spread north. Little attention has been paid to an outbreak that could emerge in the far north and then travel south, and I think that’s an oversight. There are viruses up there that have the potential to infect humans and cause a new outbreak of a disease,” warns Claverie.
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