New health threat? Pathogens frozen in permafrost resurface as Earth heats up

Subject: Environment

Context:

A warming planet is resulting in the loss of the Earth’s cryosphere — parts of the planet where water is permanently frozen such as glaciers and ice sheets, and this could be resurrecting trapped pathogens, giving rise to potential public health threats, find a new study.

Details about the study:

Researchers analysed samples from seven different ancient Siberian permafrost sites and pieced together preliminary characterisations of 13 new viruses.
- Two viruses viz pithovirus and mollivirus were identified.
The viruses studied so far only infect amoeba and are of no real threat to humans or animals.
Another route of a potential viral threat could be the thawing of dead people who possibly died of an infection.
- A 300-year-old frozen mummy from Siberia was found to contain the variola virus that causes smallpox.
- Bodies exhumed from Alaska’s permafrost contributed to understanding the 1918 Spanish flu virus genome.
Researchers warned that each new virus, even related to known families, almost always requires the development of highly specific medical responses, such as new antivirals or vaccines.
- There is no equivalent to ‘broad spectrum antibiotics’ against viruses, because of the lack of universally conserved druggable processes across the different viral families.
Russia’s Yamal peninsula witnessed an anthrax outbreak: Abnormally high ambient temperature in the summer of 2016 contributed to the thawing of permafrost and viable Bacillus anthracis (anthrax-causing bacteria) spores could have become exposed to the surface.
The research paper also made an interesting observation about antibiotic-resistance genes being prevalent in permafrost.

Natural reservoirs of pathogens:

In infectious disease ecology and epidemiology, a natural reservoir, also known as a disease reservoir or a reservoir of infection, is the population of organisms or the specific environment in which an infectious pathogen naturally lives and reproduces, or upon which the pathogen primarily depends for its survival.
Animal reservoirs: A reservoir is usually a living host of a certain species, such as an animal or a plant, inside of which a pathogen survives, often (though not always) without causing disease for the reservoir itself.
Ecosystem reservoirs: By some definitions, a reservoir may also be an environment external to an organism, such as a volume of contaminated air or water.