The World Health Organization (WHO) recently tested 15 countries on their response to a hypothetical new pandemic by simulating a deadly outbreak of a fictional disease.
They rehearsed a scenario in which an ancient virus lying dormant in the remains of a woolly mammoth caused a deadly global outbreak of “mammothpox”
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In the scenario, which was called Exercise Polaris, the outbreak occurs when a team of scientists discovered the remains of a woolly mammoth in the frozen Arctic tundra, according to the Telegraph.
WHO Insider Warns Gates Plotting ‘Polaris’ Virus to Slaughter Millions of Kids
RT reports: WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned earlier this month that a new pandemic “could happen in 20 years or more, or it could happen tomorrow,” describing it as an “epidemiological certainty.”
The exercise reportedly simulated an outbreak of “Mammothpox,” a fictional virus similar to smallpox, a disease with a 30% mortality rate that was eradicated in 1980, and mpox, a dangerous variant of which is currently surging across central Africa.
According to the scenario, the virus was released after a team of scientists and documentary filmmakers excavated the remains of a woolly mammoth in the Arctic. Within weeks, intensive care units across the world were “overwhelmed” and health systems were struggling to cope.
Although the countries involved in the exercise were able to contain the fictional virus, a real outbreak would prove much more complicated, the WHO acknowledged.
The agency’s briefing document reportedly stated that “ancient viruses can remain viable in permafrost for thousands of years,” and the thawing of the permafrost in the Arctic due to climate change may cause a “release of pathogens previously unknown to modern medicine.”
Taking advantage of the warmer temperatures, scientists and ivory hunters are digging for ancient remains in the Arctic, including those of woolly mammoths, The Telegraph noted. Many ivory hunters reportedly carry out the excavations without taking adequate health precautions.