As reported by Pandora Dewan From NewsweekScientists are increasingly concerned that viruses successfully reawakening after tens of thousands of years in permafrost could be a sign of worse things to come.

“There is Factor X, which we don’t know much about,” Umeå University infectious diseases expert Birgitta Evengaard told Dewan.

However speculative such future threats may be, what researchers have discovered in recent years calls for serious consideration in monitoring and investigating potential adverse effects in the Arctic. Because of the way infectious diseases work, most outbreaks are likely to arise from a new source, such as a wild animal population. Research has shown that zoonotic disease outbreaks are increasing in both number and diversity, and deaths are expected to increase by an average of 10 percent each year.

Statistics like these don’t even take into account spikes caused by catastrophic events like COVID-19, which are expected to become more frequent as the climate changes and humans encroach on a wide range of animal habitats. While history tells us something about spaceborne transmission of diseases from one host to another, the possibility of a pathogen making a giant leap in time is new territory for researchers.

But there are good reasons to suspect that this is possible and even likely.

In 2016, anthrax reportedly killed more than 2,000 reindeer and one person in the sparsely populated Yamal-Nenets region of northwestern Siberia. The cause of this particular outbreak is believed to be the carcass of an infected animal found long frozen in Siberian ice.

Bacillus anthracis, the bacterium responsible for the disease, has evolved the ability to hibernate in spore form, and another strain of the same genus has been revived in the laboratory after surviving for tens of millions of years inside a bee trapped in amber. Viruses may have had a similar ability to sleep for centuries. Just last year, researchers reported the reemergence of a 50,000-year-old amoeba virus found in frozen sediment 16 meters (52 feet) below a Russian lake.

It’s hard to say what these laboratory tests can say about the likelihood of actual viral infections. Although viruses need the right “mechanism” to attach to host cells and replicate inside, there is no hard and fast rule about the evolutionary relationship between two potential hosts; They became infected. past.

On the other hand, the speed and intensity of contact with a virus can make a big difference in whether it eventually develops a means of transmission to a new host. If you release enough microbes into a common ecosystem over a short period of time, there’s a chance that at least one of them will find a new host to infect.

Researchers at the University of Ottawa used DNA and RNA sequencing to build a picture of the types of viruses found in the soil and water of Lake Hazen, the largest freshwater lake in the High Arctic. Research published in 2022 suggests the frozen north could become a “breeding ground for new epidemics” as the ice continues to melt.

The study, which measured the correspondence between family trees of viruses and potential hosts, found that as the rate of glacier melting increases, captured viruses are more likely to spread into a population of known susceptible hosts.

While the return of smallpox, the next coronavirus, or an entirely new strain of virus known only to our distant ancestors are terrifying possibilities, the possibility of a pathogen affecting critical parts of the food web cannot be ignored; either as the causative agent of the infection or as the carbon source itself.

When we know what we’re doing, long-frozen ice is almost certain to have unknown factors that can catch us off guard. Evengord’s message to Devan is worth repeating. “There’s a lot we don’t know, and one of the things that very few people have studied is permafrost.” Source