Melting ice due to the climate crisis may pose a new threat to public health as researchers have brought dozens of viruses back to life, including one that was frozen under a lake 48,500 years ago.

European researchers studied samples collected from permafrost in the Siberian region of Russia. From the sample, the scientists brought 13 new pathogens, so-called “zombie viruses,” back to life and found that they remain infectious despite being trapped in the frozen ground for many millennia.

Scientists have long warned that melting permafrost due to global warming will exacerbate the climate crisis by releasing trapped greenhouse gases such as methane.

A team of researchers from Russia, Germany and France have expressed concern about the reappearance of the virus, which could infect animals or humans, and warned that their work could go ahead and show that there was a risk.

The length of time these viruses can remain infectious after exposure to environmental conditions, and the likelihood that they will encounter a suitable host and infect it, is still impossible to estimate,” the researchers said, adding that “this risk will increase when due to global warming, most people will inhabit the Arctic.”

Source: Bloomberg.