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submitted 10 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

Threat of outbreak from microbes trapped in permafrost for millennia raised by increased Siberian shipping activity

Humanity is facing a bizarre new pandemic threat, scientists have warned. Ancient viruses frozen in the Arctic permafrost could one day be released by Earth’s warming climate and unleash a major disease outbreak, they say.

Strains of these Methuselah microbes – or zombie viruses as they are also known – have already been isolated by researchers who have raised fears that a new global medical emergency could be triggered – not by an illness new to science but by a disease from the distant past.

As a result, scientists have begun planning an Arctic monitoring network that would pinpoint early cases of a disease caused by ancient micro-organisms. Additionally, it would provide quarantine and expert medical treatment for infected people in a bid to contain an outbreak, and prevent infected people from leaving the region.

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[-] nxdefiant@startrek.website 1 points 10 months ago

Well that's the thing, bird flu was handled competently, so it's spread was mostly contained and people barely remember it now.

[-] Everythingispenguins@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

It was also significantly less infectious than the Spanish flu or COVID. With R∅ numbers of H1N1(2009) of 1.46 to 1.48, Spanish Flu of 1.47 to 2.27 and COVID of 1.5 to 3.5

I am not saying that H1N1 didn't meet the definition of a pandemic. But it didn't take the extra ordinary measures to contain that COVID or the Spanish flu took.

this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2024
242 points (91.4% liked)

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