A team of scientists have revived a nearly 50,000-year old virus from a Siberian permafrost, which alarmed social media users.
Photo via MailOnline
On 29 November, an Instagram post went viral saying: “There may be a new pandemic on the way after the release of a 50,000-year-old zombie virus. However, the posts were flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed.
This is because of a recent study conducted by scientists from France, Russia and Germany saying that they have Identified 13 new viruses that have been frozen for thousands of years.
The oldest is said to be 48,500 years old!
But there’s no need to freak out! Contrary to what the claim implies, the virus was not “released” into the world but was instead safely revived in a lab.
According to the researchers, there is no threat to humans, but they do hope that their work will help scientists more about potentially harmful viruses that may one day reappear as a result of today’s global warming.
Photo via NDTV
However, the viruses proved to still be infectious even after years of being frozen in permafrost, but only in amoebas, not humans.
“Viruses are quite specific to a given host. Many dog viruses will not infect humans, for instance, and there is no chance that an amoeba-infecting virus could infect humans,” said Jean-Michel Clavarie, a professor at Aix-Marseille University who co-authored the study.
Well, that’s good news! The COVID-19 pandemic is not even over yet… We don’t need another one right now.
