The Department of Health's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today issued an official statement denying the existence of a "Zombie Virus" following a recent spate of incidents involving people behaving in a zombie-like manner.

"CDC does not know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead (or one that would present zombie-like symptoms)," the agency's spokesman, David Daigle, told the Huffington Post.

The denial comes on the heel of multiple zombie-esque events throughout the country and the world, as well as a rash of ominous occurrences across the state of Florida leading up to last Saturday's face-eating attack.

Despite the CDC's reassurance, another case of man-eat-man was reported in Staten Island yesterday, as one diner patron bit off the eat of another customer in the midst of an altercation over which TV channel to put on.

"He chewed his ear - he must have been hungry," an eyewitness told the New York Daily News. "He must have been reading about that cannibal down in Miami or something."

The CDC just last year created a website dedicated to "Zombie Preparedness." Alleging to be an "entertaining way to introduce emergency preparedness," the campaign specifically singled out the "zombie apocalypse" as a "kind of emergency" Americans should prepare for.

[image via CDC]