The world’s oldest known frozen and dormant virus has been revived in a French lab, leaving much-expressing concern about the dangers of reviving ancient microbes. Russia Harvested from the permafrost of Siberia in the Far East, the virus is 48,500 years old, proving that the virus is incredibly resilient and can survive indefinitely when cryopreserved.

What is Zombie Virus actually?

This particular virus is actually one of nine of his that have been revived from Siberian permafrost samples in recent years. These include seven viruses that were revived for this new study and two others that are about 30,000 years old and were revived by the same team of researchers from other samples taken in 2013. The youngest of these viruses was frozen 27,000 years ago. As reported in the non-peer-reviewed journal bioRxiv, the 48,500-year-old virus was named “Pandoravirus yedoma“, after Pandora’s box.

Complete History of Zombie Virus:

The virus was found in a permafrost sample taken from a 16 m deep lake in Yukechi Aras, Yakutia, Russia. The first Pandoravirus was one of two discovered in 2013, but this virus was of a completely different type. “48,500 years is a world record.” Besides its age, another notable feature of this Pandoravirus is its size. Classified as a giant virus, Pandoravirus Yedma is about 1 micrometer long and 0.5 micrometer wide. This allows direct examination under a microscope. Viruses contain about 2,500 genes, unlike the small modern viruses that infect humans, which have only 10-20 genes. Given the nasty coronavirus pandemic the world has just witnessed, these scientists are deliberately reviving a long-lost virus that was previously buried in Siberia’s frozen waste. may seem alarming, but they say the study is necessary to assess the risks associated with climate change. It is covered with permanently frozen ground known as permafrost,” they wrote in a newly published article.

How it Spreads to the World?

As the permafrost melts, organic matter that has been frozen for up to a million years begins to melt. One of these effects is the release of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, which increases the greenhouse effect. Another said, “Part of this organic matter is also composed of revived cellular microorganisms (prokaryotes, unicellular eukaryotes) and viruses that have been dormant since prehistoric times.” Only by extracting and resuscitating them under controlled conditions will scientists be able to assess what threats they pose to human health and safety in a warm, permafrost-free future.

With permafrost covering more than a quarter of the total land area of ​​the Northern Hemisphere, this is not a needless concern. The viral load currently trapped in permafrost is undoubtedly enormous and, if fully released over the course of decades, could set off an avalanche of new viral infections across a range of host species. Humans cannot escape the effects of viral pathogens that have not circulated for tens of thousands of years.

While the immune system will eventually adapt, it is a devastating disease that cuts through the spectrum of microbial, plant, and animal life. It may be too late to prevent loss of life. Concerns about thawing permafrost are more than just theoretical. The once-frozen ground has already begun to thaw in some areas, allowing scientists to recover frozen, well-preserved specimens.