Mollivirus sibericum, 0.6 microns giant ancient virus found in the frozen wastes of Siberia, has now been planned to be restored to life or consciousness. Scientists are planning to use this fourth pre-historic virus since 2003 to find out if it affects humans or animals.

Scientists said that the frequent visits by humans to Siberia for exploiting the mineral resources is the reason behind their plans to restore multiple ancient viruses. Jean-Michel Claverie, researcher at France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), said that owing to such a high level of human interference, there are chances that the viruses like small pox can revive.

In order to make their plan come true, scientists are deciding to make use of single-cell amoeba as a host for the Mollivirus.

To cite an example, ‘Spanish flu’ is the similar virus which was recently reanimated by scientists. It has been reported that about tens of millions of people were killed by this ‘Spanish flu’ virus, which was buried deep in permafrost.

Pithovirus sibericum, another giant virus, was also revived by Claverie and his team in 2013. They have declared the ancient viruses to be giant and complex by comparing its number of genes with that of Influenza A virus. Sibericum has a count of genes more than 500 while on the other hand Influenza A virus is having only eight.