As the Wuhan pandemic rages on and the world faces many disasters, many other deadly viruses are emerging. Recently, scientists discovered 28 new viruses that appeared on the Tibetan Qing Plateau, and bacteria and viruses that have been frozen for tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years, can also be recovered due to the global warming.
According to an article published on the bioRxiv site by scientists at Ohio State University in the United States, alongside global warming, bacteria and viruses are frozen under the permafrost, dormant for centuries recovering gradually.
The study found that evidence for the existence of old viruses was found in samples of ice cores from the Qing-Tibet Plateau, of which 28 species were new viruses. Global warming has shrunk glaciers around the world and can release bacteria and viruses that have been frozen for tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years.
In this regard, many people anxiously sigh: “Bad news keeps coming, the earth is becoming more and more dangerous”.
28 ancient viruses humans have never seen
According to a recent report by the Liuku Policy Institute, around 28 new viruses appeared in September 2015, scientists from 5 countries in China, the United States, Russia, Italy and Peru focused on the Guliya Glacier in the Mount Kunlun. This is an activity carried out by the Qing-Tibet Plateau Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Ohio University in the United States. The purpose of this activity is to study various ancient environmental features by drilling deep into the ice core.
Under rigorous sterilization, the team isolated a relatively rich variety of microorganisms, including 18 bacteria and 33 viruses, from an ice core 520 to 15,000 years old. Among them are 28 viruses that humanity has never known.
In January, they published an article on the bioRxiv rằng site saying that with just a few words like “an unknown ancient virus” many people thought something “terrible” could happen. . In fact, this result is not surprising.
Previous studies have shown that the number of microorganisms in the ice core is around 100-10,000 cells per ml, while on the high seas the number of microorganisms per ml is 10,000-1,000 000, more than glacial. If it is a smaller virus, the number is even higher.
In 1999, American scientists discovered the image of the “tomato mosaic virus” in a sample of an ice core underground nearly 2 km deep in Greenland. Its genome has been buried for 140,000 years in an ice core.
In March 2014, scientists discovered a giant virus 1.5 microns long in the frozen lands of Siberia. Its existence dates back over 30,000 years and scientists have named it “Pithovirus sibericum”.
In 2004, an archaeological team of French and Russian scientists unearthed several frozen “mummies” that died over 300 years ago in the permafrost region of northeast Siberia. It was discovered that the “mummies” still carried the smallpox virus.
Scientists have expressed concern about smallpox viruses in frozen soils, as these viruses can be in a “false death” state.
In addition to the smallpox virus, in 1918 the Spanish flu caused a total of 20 to 50 million deaths, there is data showing that the number of deaths could reach 100 million, while the world population at that time n was not 2 billion people.
Scientists found the remains of the 1918 influenza virus in the permafrost region of Alaska, obtained the complete influenza virus genome sequence from the genetic sample, and discovered that the virus was more stronger than the current flu virus.
In this regard, one argument is that pathogens in permafrost can pose unforeseen dangers. So, in the context of global warming, the countries of the northern hemisphere will become more susceptible to diseases that normally only occur in countries of the southern hemisphere such as malaria, cholera and dengue, due to the epidemic. Temperature.
Another point of view is that the risk posed by pathogens in permafrost should not be underestimated. These can be bacteria that can be treated with antibiotics, or bacteria and viruses that are already resistant to antibiotics. If the human immune system is not prepared to fight this pathogen, it can be dangerous.
In general, this question is still in the early stages of research. Before clarifying viral toxicity, the risk of these unknown viruses should be carefully considered.
