Melting Glaciers could be the source of the next Pandemic

Recent evidence suggests that the next pandemic could result from melting glaciers. An analysis of Arctic lakes found that frozen viruses and bacteria can thaw and infect animals. The Next Pandemic recent information suggests that the next pandemic may not be caused by bats or birds, but by melting ice. 

Genetic analysis of the floor and lake sediments of Lake Hazen, the world's largest high Arctic freshwater lake, suggests that viruses that infect new hosts for the first time are more likely to emerge near melting glaciers. The results also suggest that viruses and bacteria lurking in glaciers and permafrost could reawaken and infect nearby species as climate change warms the planet, especially as their range approaches the poles. For example, the 2016 heat wave, when permafrost thawed and infected reindeer carcasses were exposed, was blamed for an anthrax epidemic in northern Siberia that killed one child and infected at least seven others. It is the previous epidemic in this area occurred in 1941. Stéphane Aris-Brosou and her colleagues at the University of Ottawa, Canada collected soil and sediment samples from Lake Hazen to better understand the risks posed by frozen viruses. Scientists then used algorithms to determine how likely these viruses were to infect unrelated groups of organisms. Finally, they analyzed the RNA and DNA of these samples and found features very similar to those of known viruses and possibly animal, plant, or fungal hosts.

The study, reported in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, found that in areas that received significant amounts of glacier meltwater the virus was more likely to spread to new hosts. Researchers have not determined whether the virus can cause infection, nor have they quantified the number of previously unknown viruses they found. 

However, another recent study claims that an unidentified virus may and does exist in glacial ice. For example, scientists at Ohio State University in the United States last year reported finding genetic material in 33 viruses in ice samples taken from the Tibetan Plateau in China, 28 of which were unique. These viruses were estimated to be about 15,000 years old based on its location.

A giant virus isolated from the Siberian permafrost was brought back by researchers from the French National Center for Scientific Research in Aix-Marseille in 2014, reinfecting it for the first time in 30,000 years. According to Jean-Michel Claverie, author of the study, the discovery of such ice sheet could be "a formula for catastrophe." However, Aris Group Brosou warns that identifying high-risk spillovers is not the same as identifying actual spillovers or pandemics. The odds of a spectacular event "are likely to remain low unless the virus and its 'cross-linking vector' are co-distributed in the environment”. On the other hand, climate change is expected to affect the current distribution of species that may introduce new hosts to extinct viruses and bacteria. According to Aris-Brosou

The only conclusion that can be made is that the potential for spillovers into this ecosystem is increasing. Will this cause a pandemic? We are not entirely sure.