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Paleovirus, a virus that killed ancient animals, including mammoths. PHOTO/IST
READ ALSO – Terrible, Russia warns of resurgence of ancient viruses
As reported by the Daily Star on Tuesday (20/12/2022), experts from the Vector Research Center in Novosibirsk, Siberia, Russia, who analyzed the remains of ancient giant elephants known as mammoths, woolly rhinos and a number of other animals that lived during the ice age.
They are trying to identify and revive prehistoric viruses known as paleoviruses that have been dormant for nearly half a million years.
The team also conducted research with the aim of extracting and studying the infection that caused the death of these prehistoric animals.
However, experts said the search was very risky because the virus that killed mammoths and other prehistoric animals could also infect humans.
Genome expert Professor Jean-Michel Claverie from the National Center for Scientific Research at Aix-Marseille University said: ‘Vector research is very, very risky.
“Our immune system has never encountered this type of virus. Some viruses are 200,000 or even 400,000 years old.
In 2019, a gas explosion spread through a laboratory called the National Research Center for Virology (Vector) in Koltsovo, Novosibirsk, Siberia, a repository of very dangerous diseases including bubonic, anthrax and Ebola.
Another Ebola lab glitch occurred in 2004 in Russia that resulted in the death of a worker after he accidentally stabbed himself with a needle containing the virus.
