Well, just when the world is settling with the COVID-19 pandemic, here is another virus making its way towards us. European researchers from National Centre for Scientific Research revived more than two dozen 'zombie viruses'. The samples were collected from permafrost in the Siberia region of Russia. Permafrost is the thick surface layer which remains below freezing point throughout the year and is most prevalent in polar regions.
The finding, which has caught everyone's eye, is the Pandoravirus yedoma which is 48,500 years old. This is a record age for a frozen virus returning to a form where it may infect other creatures. This breaks the previous record of a 30,000-year-old virus identified in Siberia by the same scientists in 2013.
But what is a zombie virus and how dangerous is it? What about the revived zombie viruses? Are they harmful? These and a lot more questions will be answered in today's edition of #WhatTheFAQ.
What is a zombie virus?
"Viruses that have been dormant since the dawn of time" but have recently come to life after becoming unfrozen. This is what defines zombie viruses as per a preliminary study, as stated in online reports.
What can be the symptoms of zombie viruses?
- Reduction in the mental capacity of humans
- Sleeping Sickness
- Fever and chills
- Joint pain
- Itching
- Headaches
- Poor motor coordination
- Confusion
What are the researchers saying?
According to European researchers, "It is thus likely that ancient permafrost will release these unknown viruses upon thawing. How long these viruses could remain infectious once exposed to outdoor conditions, and how likely they will be to encounter and infect a suitable host in the interval, is yet impossible to estimate," as stated in a report by Hindustan Times.
"But the risk is bound to increase in the context of global warming when permafrost thawing will keep accelerating and more people will be populating the Arctic in the wake of industrial ventures," they added.
Is it a threat?
Although more research is needed to identify the harmful effects of zombie viruses, researchers discovered that the viruses have the potential to be infectious, in the same style as COVID-19 and pose a "health danger". Moreover, to assess the level of infectiousness, more research is needed to know how these viruses are when exposed to light, heat, oxygen and other outside environmental variables, as stated in a report by the New York Post, a daily tabloid of NYC.
Further, a study from the same read, “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."
What is the finding of the report?
Researchers traced 13 new viruses which were isolated from seven different pre-historic Siberian permafrost samples, one each from the Lena river and Kamchatka cryosol.
According to the preliminary report, global warming is irrevocably thawing enormous swathes of permafrost — permanently frozen ground that covers one-quarter of the Northern Hemisphere. This has had the unsettling effect of “releasing organic materials frozen for up to a million years” — possibly deadly germs included. “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, as stated in a report by the New York Post.
Even though these viruses remained dormant for hundreds of millennia, scientists found that they can remain infectious.
How is the public reacting to it?
@apex7an: BREAKING!
Research Scientists discovered 13 never seen before viruses buried in ice in Serbia
Get your crops ready and Choose 3 friends with whom you want to fight/stay alive from this upcoming APOCALYPSE!
No One knows what'll happen in the next 50 Years.
#Zombie #zombievirus
@Bod_republik: Zombie Virus, Another one!
@Esosa_CA_Films: How can you trap a zombie virus in ice for 50,000 and then go get and bring it back lmao and if zombies never existed how was it a virus in the first place ? Lol
@DoctorrSays: #zombievirus getting ready to rule the world
@PriyaBanubakode: Just like web series, virus also has season 2. After covid pandemic now its #zombievirus
@Estheremma25: I see scientists are bored?! Why do they have itchy hands?! Why?!!!
