CDC tries to shut down Zombies Apocalypse chatter.

African trypanosomiasis is sometimes dubbed the zombie disease and is not the stuff of science fiction, the very real problem in sub-Saharan Africa is so prevalent, the Christian Post reports there are "nearly 10,000 new cases are reported a year in Africa."

The report notes the reason some call it the zombie disease, the sickness "neurologically turns healthy men and women into zombie-like, confused people, and can kill if left untreated."

The disease is not in the US, so why the fear of an upcoming zombie apocalypse?

Several bizarre criminal incidents in the United States have the media writing zombie headlines like the one above, and with good enough reason, one one occasion a man in Miami played out a role so many have seen in Zombie movies, he found a man who was alive, pounced on him and begin tearing the flesh off his face with his teeth, looking just like an actor in any Hollywood zombie movie.

It wasn't a horror film though, it was very real terror for one homeless man in Miami, in broad daylight.

And the attacker was alive - for a while.

Police shoot zombie like man in Miami...

It was a brutal attack that lasted several minutes and was stopped by a police officer with a gun.

It wasn't easy, the man displaying the zombie like behavior eating the other man's face refused to stop when ordered and only looked up, (reportedly with flesh hanging from his teeth and the blood of his victim all over his face and neck), before diving back in to chow down on the man's face again.

The officer then acted to save the victim and shot the attacker several times and he finally released off the man's face and died from the gunshots.

The good news - the zombie like attacker remained dead.

See video and more details here.

Other gruesome incidents...

The New York Daily News also reported about a Canadian man who tortured and dismembered a college engineer student, mailing the body parts he didn't eat to politicians.

He has been arrested.

The Associated Press notes two more incidents.

In Maryland, a college student is telling police he killed a man, then ate his heart and part of his brain.

The report adds:

"It was different in New Jersey, where a man stabbed himself 50 times and threw bits of his own intestines at police. They pepper-sprayed him, but he was not easily subdued.He was, people started saying, acting like a zombie."

CDC to the rescue...

There is nothing to see here, says the US Government.

Philly News' John Baer muses:

"The CDC has officially declared there is no "zombie apocalypse."

I'm not kidding.

This comes after a slew of disturbing news reports regarding people eating other people, which apparently drove some to worry that, you know, there IS a "zombie apocalypse."

But take heart (not literally, of course). The agency announced it does not know of "a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead" or one that would present zombie-like symptoms."

Fox News notes "in the past, the CDC has put out a survival guide for a zombie apocalypse as a humorous promotion for what to do in a disaster."

(Image: WENN)