Tail of infectious diseases erupts from the melting of the ice. We should not be afraid yet

You may feel that we all have enough anxiety, and therefore you do not need a ghost of bacteria or viruses that resemble zombies in the frosty soil that removed a story directly from the science fiction dust. Unfortunately, it is a fact that looms on the horizon thanks to climate change.

Fortunately, scientists tell us that despite the time we carefully thought about how to manage the enormous numbers of microbes that are launched alongside huge amounts of ice melting and ice melting as a result of global heating, there is no need to panic and do not raise this problem.

When a salon spoke to the microbiologist Luis Andres Yarzakal, associate professor at the University of Catolica de Queena in Ecuador, he was already keen to avoid raising the problem. But he indicated that we have been aware of the eighties of the dramatic quantities of microbes in the most ice leaves in Antarctica or above the mountains, such as clubs, and in the soil. It includes a group of life on the ice bacteria, viruses, fungi, protozoa and even microscopic animals such as nematodes, some are dead and some are alive in hanging animation.

Yarzábal has already started studying microbiology in club rivers, which begins in Venezuela 17 years ago, because he and his team were interested in the vital technological capabilities of cold love, or microorganisms.

“It can be used, for example, for agricultural purposes, to improve agriculture in cold areas, in mountainous areas.” But the ice rivers in the country melted, and as they did, huge numbers of pathogens in the ice melted. Some of these pathogens may be very old, as the human immune system is completely naive for them, which means that unleashing it may affect millions, and perhaps even provoke another pandemic. The possibilities of such an event may be far away – we do not actually know the possibility of all this – but we know that the possibility is not zero and will increase with the declines of ice in the world.

Yarzábal said: “Venezuela is now the first country in the modern world that has lost all ice rivers, and there were many pathogens,” said Yarzábal. Some are very similar to modern human pathogens. Of the useful Microbes, I am forced now to think about the less reckless capabilities. After all, the lost ice rivers in Venezuela were far from release the only waters that were frozen for tens or hundreds of thousands of years. Recently published research in nature indicates this Between 2000 and 2023, the ice rivers in the world lost about 275 Gigawn, or give them, by mass annually, with a significant melting rate recently increased.

“The rate that we lost ice during these 23 years is nearly the amount of water contained in four Olympic baths per second. This is many microbes that will differentiate around ecosystems and aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems,” said Yarzábal, who will differentiate around ecosystems and aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. I published a 2021 review with two colleagues exploration The literature in relation to the consequences of such a large store of microbes that are steadily launched again to the environment. This is just the ice rivers. There is still a frosty soil meal and the melting of ice leaves that should take into account. All of these, no matter how uncomfortable, contain their microbial worlds. Yarzábal said that the worlds range from ten and 100 million microbes per milly of ice, depending on the type of ice.

“We are talking [altogether] About a quantity of microorganisms that were estimated between 10^25 and 10^28 closed microorganisms, surrounded by glaciers … so they are a large amount of microorganisms … Think that there are 10^23 stars in the universe, “said Yarzali Salon.

He said, while many of these captive microbes have died, and many of them are not.

Yarzali said: “In this group of viable microorganisms, there are some ancient pathogens, which can also be active … and can be published in various environmental systems and can, of course, injure animals, plants and other microbes,” Yarzali said. Which of these can pose a problem, whether it is because we are talking about a fatal virus for human beings, bacteria that affect livestock, or a type of fungus, for example, can secure plants. The disruption of the environmental balance always has the ability to cause human health risks directly, or to risk changing or destroying the environment that we depend on or only appreciate for its fundamental value.

“This is a fact,” said yarzábal. “So that we can see it as a threat, and we can expect this problem by studying these diseases or these microbes, by studying the environment of ice escapes and tityan soil. It is a fact, so we must be ready for what can happen.”

Indeed, we have a warning to what could happen: In 2016, Siberia was Very hot summer. The soil was melted, and in this process, the corpses of the frozen reindeer, who died nearly 150 years ago, were exposed thanks to the malignant anthrax epidemic. While the animals had died, some of the bacteria in them remained alive, and when the unique living reindeer touched with the remains of their frozen ancestors, they became afflicted with the bacteria that make up the dawn, Malignant anthrax. Yarzakal also told a salon, nearly 2,500 animals died and hundreds of people (who, in this area, in close contact with the reindeer, also told them as a source of protein for food and trade), with the death of at least a small human child as a result.

Getty Images/Stasz D Sirotkin)While Yarzábal works in the southern hemisphere, in the far north, d. Emily Andersen Ranburg, the chief veterinarian in the Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences at the University of Copenhagen, is studying pathogens in the Arctic that are animal of origin, which means that they cause diseases that can spread between animals and humans.

Not all the causes of pathogens origin in the Arctic are not frozen, and I adopt you, and not all the causes of frozen pathogens in the Arctic are stimulant. But about three quarters of everyone Human infectious diseases are an animal custody, Including the majority of new epidemics and epidemics in recent yearsAnd there is an overlap with the issue of melting frosty soil. in A paper published in DecemberAndersen-Ranberg and a group of authors participating in the Zoonooth viruses, bacteria and parasites are of interest to the Arctic, on the pretext of that.The Arctic represents a changing world where it is possible that pollution and loss of biological diversity, habitats and marine activity forward infecting infectious diseases “, while dissolving the soil as one factor among many.

To what extent we should be really interested in core infections? In an email interview, I told Andersen-Ranberg the salon that this is not completely clear.

She said: “We simply do not know exactly. There, however, there is a clear theoretical danger because the ice rivers and the Titrical regeneration melts and stored ancient microbes for thousands of years, and some of these living organisms have been found to revive and restore the function after melting the ice.” For example, a wide range of RNA and DNA viruses were discovered in fake soils and managed to reactivate, [such as] RNA viruses that are very similar to the viruses that affect mammals today. On the other hand, we are constantly exposed to viruses that may be caused by diseases from various natural sources, and there are no reasons necessarily to fear that viruses in the frozen environment are more causing diseases. “

However, I noticed that the melting of frosty soil can re -provide viruses that cause ancient pathogens that have now become extinct, or when today’s strains have evolved to have different genetic makeup, immune systems (or other mammals) are less able to detect old breeds.

These pathogens will not be unknown to our immune systems, as it was smallpox in the immune system of the indigenous people who faced it as a result of European colonists who brought the virus to the Americas, Australia and other places, which led to mass deaths from the disease waves.

Not only the return of old diseases, but the fact that pathogens can trade genetic information if they communicate with each other, a process known as viral reinstallation. Bacteria are also “unexpected”, and the exchange of genetic materials easily. This can allow them to obtain genes of frozen pathogens that give antimicrobial resistance or greater virginity. As is common for hosts like humans or other animals to wrap more than one infection at one time, there can be a lot of opportunities to transmit genes. Therefore, the infectious agents emitted from the melting of the ice “represent a larger range of genetic viral diversity that will be in the viral population that is already circulating,” Andersen Ranberg explained.

Andersen Ranberg added: “This, for example, means more possible ways to avoid the host’s immune system, or increase the ability to injure a variety of hosts,” Andersen Ranburg added. “Moreover, this introduction caused by soluble causes occurs simultaneously with other major changes on the dynamics of the disease around the world that currently occurs due to climate change and changing human activities. Simply, this happens a lot at the same time.”

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So what can or should we do about it?

“I don’t know,” Yarzakal admitted frankly. That is, besides what has already been recommended – we should do much more to expect possible diseases or repetition and understand the specific pathogens that we likely face. The microbiologist is not sure of the other measures that we may take, we talk practically, as the vast areas of ice and regeneration are fired by microorganisms that were hanging on all these years. Unless we reduce emissions enough to keep some frozen pathogens in ice.

The air view over the ice rivers that melted in the soil of the falconry in the Jostedalsbreen National Park (Getty Images/Michael Workman)Moreover, this genie cannot be returned in his bottle, as he is monitored and managed only because he plays his tricks. But monitoring and containing the outbreak of possible diseases will be it is very important to protect us. In 2019, the Consultative Council for European Academies Release This pointed out that the launch of the nurse for infectious diseases caused by the melting of the ice was among the different methods in which climate change in human health in Europe could affect. In the same year, EASAC, along with the academies of science, engineering and medicine (NASEM) and the rescue partnership, which is a global network of science, engineering and medicine societies, gathered researchers and public health officials from North America, the European Union and Russia to assess the current state of knowledge and gaps related to the risks that are similar to it.

But we really need to achieve more scientific investigation to understand the degree of threat that such diseases may pose on human health, animals and ecological system. Meanwhile, the Arctic Council, which brings together the Arctic and the original North Pole societies to exchange knowledge and discuss the policy that affects the region, It has been weakened in recent years Political divisions and regional aspirations of different countries.

Andersen Ranburg told science: “For me, there is a gap that excels between knowledge and anxiety from scholars and the opinions and goals of decision makers, that is, a heterogeneous relationship between knowledge and political facts,” Andersen Ranberg told science. “I find this more worthy of observation, because there is a little concentration relatively on and monitoring reasonable steroids as well as the emerging disease/resinn Nutrition – an area that is exposed to the largest degree of climate change in the world that is currently changing the dynamics of the disease.”