Scientists warn long-frozen ‘zombie virus’ is ‘public health threat’ amid thawBy Ben Cost
November 28, 2022
They’re potentially prying open Pandora’s pox.
French scientists have sparked fears of yet another pandemic after reviving a “zombie virus” that had been trapped under a frozen lake in Russia for a record 50,000 years.
“The situation would be much more disastrous in the case of plant, animal, or human diseases caused by the revival of an ancient unknown virus,” reads the “viral” study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed. The new research was helmed by microbiologist Jean-Marie Alempic from the French National Centre for Scientific Research, Science Alert reported.
According to the preliminary paper, global warming is causing vast swaths of the permafrost — permanently frozen ground covering one-quarter of the Northern Hemisphere — to irreversibly thaw. This has had the alarming effect of “releasing organic matter frozen for up to a million years” — including potentially harmful pathogens.
“Part of this organic matter also consists of revived cellular microbes (prokaryotes, unicellular eukaryotes) as well as viruses that remained dormant since prehistorical times,” the researchers write.
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Source:
https://nypost.com/2022/11/28/long-frozen-zombie-virus-is-public-health-threat-amid-thaw/