Syrian desert.
Photo: Marija Miloradovic/TrekEarth
Permafrost warms, glaciers recede and life that has been dormant is revived – and biodiversity surprises abound. A number of otherwise extinct mosses and lichens have been exposed by the retreat Ellesmere Island’s Teardrop Glacier.
A 30,000-year-old virus, benign but previously unknown, was found in ice cores pulled from Siberian permafrost.
Some apprehension is understandable; not all giant viruses are benign.
Credit: Julia Bartoli & Chantal Abergel; Information Génomique et Structurale, CNRS-AMU
But another powerful environmental force has revived a virus much smaller, more recent, and more lethal. War supports biodiversity of the worst kind.
The polio virus, all but eradicated, has been making a comeback in the Middle East due to the retreat of vaccinations during the four-year conflict. A 95% vaccination rate is considered sufficient to keep the virus from infecting populations. The rate of vaccination during the Syrian war was estimated at 68% in 2012, and is less now.
Twenty five cases of polio have been confirmed in Syria since October 2013. Another 84 cases of measles have been confirmed in the first week of 2014, according to the World Health Organization. And an estimated 500,000 Syrian children, many unvaccinated, are now living as refugees in neighbouring countries. A wider spread of the disease is feared. Vaccination programs are underway in refuge camps.
Polio is caused by a human enterovirus called the poliovirus. There are three types; Type 2 has been eliminated, Types 1 and 3 still exist, with Type 1 being the most pervasive and dangerous.
Source: GPEI site photo gallery
Human-caused climate change extends to areas long covered by glaciers; it will be interesting and hopefully not too frightening to see what kind of viral biodiversity rebounds from the ice.
In the case of polio, however, we had come so far in pushing it to the brink of extinction. Watching its return as a result of human negligence and war is one environmental development that is both a sign of the tenacity of the virus, and of our own disregard for the best of which we are capable.