Frozen zombie viruses have been revived and according to experts, they can still infect living single-celled amoebae. With intensifying global temperatures, these viruses could “rise” again and may trigger the start of an apocalypse.
While the chances of these viruses infecting animals or humans are not yet clear, researchers say permafrost viruses must be viewed as a public health risk.
Permafrost covers 15% of land in the Northern Hemisphere. It remains completely frozen all year round, at least, prior to human activities prompting the rise of global temperatures.
Thus, is climate change the prologue to the apocalypse?
Because of climate change, permafrost is fast melting, exhuming a multitude of primeval vestiges, from viruses and bacteria to wooly mammoths and a perfectly preserved cave bear.
Zombie Strains in Siberia?
According to CNN, French professor Jean-Michel Claverie found strains of the 48,000-year-old frozen virus from a few permafrost sites in Siberia.
The oldest zombie strain dating back 48,500 years, came from a sample of soil coming from an underground lake, while the youngest samples were 27,000 years old. One of the young samples was discovered in the cadaver of a wooly mammoth.
Some scientists fear that as climate change warms the Arctic, defrosting permafrost could release ancient viruses that haven’t been in contact with living things for thousands of years. As such, plants, animals, and humans might have no immunity to them.
“You must remember our immune defense has been developed in close contact with microbiological surroundings,” Birgitta Evengård, professor emerita at Umea University’s Department of Clinical Microbiology in Sweden, told CNN.
“If there is a virus hidden in the permafrost that we have not been in contact with for thousands of years, it might be that our immune defense is not sufficient,” she added.
“It is correct to have respect for the situation and be proactive and not just reactive. And the way to fight fear is to have knowledge, ” Evengård emphasized.
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NOTE: A terrifying scene from a Zombie movie. Screengrab from YouTube