American TV channel CNN reported that a group of specialists from the French University of Aix-Marseille, which revived the frozen “zombie virus”, spoke about the potential risk that infectious agents can carry in permafrost conditions.
According to the publication, French experts found gigantic viruses in the permafrost and restored their ability to infect amoebas. The oldest of them was about 48.5 thousand years old, and the youngest was about 27 thousand years old. Researchers admit that in the permafrost, which occupies a fifth of the Northern Hemisphere, there may be viruses that have the ability to infect humans.
As noted in CNN, traces of them have been found before, in particular, this concerns the strain of influenza that led to the 1918 pandemic. It was found in a lung sample from a woman discovered 26 years ago in Alaska. In addition, an outbreak of anthrax in Siberia a few years ago was also triggered by the thawing of permafrost during abnormally hot summer weather.