Far under the ice, in the northern reaches of Earth, diseases are frozen in time. As the Earth heats up and the frost starts to melt, a flurry of new diseases could be unleashed.
In a northern corner of Siberia, high in the Arctic circle in 2016, a mysterious anthrax outbreak struck a nomadic community, infecting nearly 100 people and killing a 12-year old boy. Anthrax is a rare but deadly disease that kills up to 80% of people it infects without treatment. The illness travelled through reindeer and killed over 2300 of them. The stray outbreak was widely attributed to the a particularly warm heatwave, melting the permafrost and releasing the dormant disease.
Permafrost is ground that stays frozen and doesn’t melt due to the environmental temperatures. Almost 25% of the northern hemisphere contains permafrost and some of it is over 5000 years old.
Researchers warn that this outbreak may just be a flavour of things to come, as global warming accelerates and more permafrost melts, we may be about to release a plethora of diseases, new and old.
On the other hand, a team of scientists have hotly refuted this explanation, blaming instead the Russian government for rolling back their policy on reindeer vaccination. Hueffer et al. write ‘multiple factors such as an increased reindeer population, discontinuation of vaccination and release of spores from previously buried carcasses, acting synergistically, rather than only thawing permafrost are likely contributors.’. The research, published in 2020, goes on to say that compared to other threats, ‘pathogen release from the permafrost is likely of minor importance’.
So, whilst scientific opinion is divided on the matter of specifically how dangerous these dormant diseases are, they are nonetheless potentially harmful.
On multiple occasions, scientists have successfully revived ancient diseases. In 2005, for example, a team managed to revive 32,000-year-old bacteria, known as Carnobacterium pleistoncenium.
Deep in the frost, with an absence of ultraviolet light or heat, it’s realistic to assume at least some viruses could survive. Of course, when viruses defrost, they need a host to infect or they will most likely die. When they are alone – and many of these viruses are isolated within the Arctic Circle – they pose very little threat.
However, as global warming continues, it may start to become profitable for human mining activities and other industry to begin in and around the arctic. As humans begin having increased contact with these areas, it stands to reason that the likelihood of spreading thawed viruses would increase.
Additionally, animals could play a part in spreading these illnesses. Climate change has been shown to influence several species’ normal migrations in unpredictable ways. As the crisis worsens, animals could easily unknowingly act as a conduit, through which viruses are spread to other areas.
It might not all be bad news though. As the permafrost melts, we will gain access to previously locked away viruses. Retrieving samples of these can give us the historical origins of diseases; where the frost acts like a time capsule. For example, in 2007, scientists used a preserved sample of Spanish flu to reconstruct its genetic makeup. Finding out about the genetic origins of diseases can help in the development of treatments. By reconstructing the Spanish flu, Taubenberger, Kash and Morens determined that other flu pandemics (such as the 2009 Swine flu), were caused by direct descendants the 1918 flu.
To add on to this, in 2019 a paper claimed that with this rapidly growing knowledge of the disease (granted to us by the melting permafrost), it may one day be possible to develop a universal flu vaccine, or at the very least, a vaccine that gives broader and more durable immunity. As Morens and Taubenberger write, ‘A fitting legacy for the 1918 influenza pandemic would be advances in basic understanding and vaccine development to prevent catastrophes of the same magnitude in the future.’
This is a very young field of study and the potential benefits of the melting permafrost are still revealing themselves.
Research into bacteriophages could also be aided by the melting permafrost. These are viruses that target and kill bacteria and have been tipped as a potential treatment to future antibiotic resistant strains. Scientists believe that there are many unseen bacteriophages hiding in the permafrost that could be used as another tool to fight disease with.
What the future holds for disease is difficult to know. Prominent scientists were warning about a pandemic for years before COVID-19 struck and were broadly ignored, perhaps this will be similar. As the planet warms, all kinds of changes will begin taking place, and deadly diseases could be awoken. But maybe it would be prudent to tackle the more certain effects of climate change – like rising sea levels – instead of focusing on something that might pose little threat in the end.