We have known for a while that ice caps and glaciers have been melting due to global warming. It has also been established that this could cause the destruction of natural habitats and rising water levels. Recently, researchers warned that the melting of the ice in the Arctic might unleash viruses that have been frozen in time.
The Risk of Spreading
Scientists have studied the soil and lake sediment in Lake Hazen, which is in volume, is the largest lake north of the Arctic Circle. They used the segments of DNA and RNA to determine which viruses are present in the environment, where they found a new species of Chlamydia.
They tried calculating the spillover risk using a computer algorithm, which shows the ability of viruses to flood into new host species which might cause them to spread. According to Interesting Engineering, the High Arctic could potentially be fertile ground for emerging pandemics, due to climate change.
Dr. Kaliniene mentioned that microorganisms and viruses can enter permafrost zones, mountaintops, and rock glaciers. This will allow them to be frozen, most likely within their animal or human host. It's a question of whether their infectivity is affected through time.
As mentioned in EuroScientist Journal, scientists have successfully recovered infectious virions from the permafrost areas in Siberia. The virus was 30,000 years old, and was called Pithovirus sibericum, and Mollivirus sibericum.
The lack of exposure to the elements like oxygen, temperature differentiation, and ultraviolet light, has made favorable conditions for preservation. This allowed scientists to revive viruses as old as eight million years old, and samples of bacterial nucleic acids as old as 34 million years old.
They did say that the chances of a virus spreading from the Arctic are still low. This is because of the various way a virus can be transmitted. Insect-borne viruses are rarely if not impossible to spread because of the lack of insects in the area. Researchers are also not likely to touch the specimen with bare or wounded hands, crossing out blood-borne transmissions.
The fact that exposure to air could immediately kill the virus, also weighs in the unlikeliness of it spreading in other regions of the world via researchers. They are focusing more on ways to determine the spillover risks of the melting Arctic ice, which can useful if a pandemic does originate from the place.
The Melting of the Ice
Global warming has been slowly eating away at the Arctic. A third of the Arctic Ocean winter ice has already disappeared in just a few decades. In the past 43 years, the Arctic has warmed at an alarming rate, which is four times faster than other areas in the world.
Since places near the equator have been warming up as well, shifts in species ranges may occur. The shift in habitat and the melting of the ice could go hand-in-hand in bringing vectors that will make spillovers possible and spread more quickly.
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