Photo: Tibetan plateau
The next pandemic may come from melting ice, not bats or birds. Genetic analysis of soil and lake sediments from the world’s largest high Arctic lake suggests risk of viral spillover (a virus infects a new host for the first time) may be higher close to melting glaciers. As temperatures rise, it’s more likely that viruses and bacteria locked up in glaciers and permafrost could reawaken and infect local wildlife.
A 2016 anthrax outbreak in Siberia killed a child and infected seven other people or more. Attributed to a heatwave that melted permafrost, it exposed an infected reindeer carcass. Unknown viruses can, and do, loiter in glacier ice. Researchers have found genetic material from 33 viruses estimated to be approximately 15,000 years old (28 of them novel) taken from China’s Tibetan plateau ice samples. French scientists have revived a giant virus from Siberian permafrost, making it infectious again for the first time in 30,000 years. Climate change is predicted to alter the range of existing species, bringing new hosts into contact with ancient viruses or bacteria.
AN IMPENDING CALAMITY to the right is a novel about this potential.