Ebola 'risen from the dead' zombie story is a complete hoax

The story of dead Ebola victims rising from the dead, with the first "picture" of one of the zombies that has gone viral, (if it weren't glaringly obvious) is a hoax.

The story, “Africa confirms 3rd Ebola victim rises from the dead, releases picture of first ‘Ebola zombie’ captured,” was shared which has been shared around the web, is posted on a satirical site.

The image caption reads: "For the first time in human history, confirmed footage is captured of a man who scientists watched die from Ebola then only several hours later, regain life and rise from the dead".

The site, Big America News, purports to be built upon the principles of “fearless reporting, loudly yelled opinions and facts proudly born of raw gut instinct”.

The image on the article, while impressive, is in fact doctored picture of a zombie from the film World War Z. It appears to have taken an image of one of the film’s lab-zombies, and merged it with this picture of a “realistic movie sculpture” from Schell Studios, which the messageboard 8chan pointed out.

It is just the latest in a series of rumours of Ebola victims being seen “resurrecting” after apparently being killed by the virus.

Reports of two separate cases of Ebola victims dying and then coming back to life in Liberia’s Nimba County have appeared in two African news outlets; All Africa and The New Dawn.

The reports suggest the women identified as Doris Qui of Hope Village Community, and Ma Kebeh, “resurrected” as they were about to be taken to burial.

However, as hoax-debunking site Snopes.com points out: “No corroborating report of Ebola resurrections have surfaced since the initial story was published in Liberia, and no details have emerged to clarify the circumstances under which the patients died.”

Another story that hasn’t helped the resurrection rumours is from when Good Morning America’s Dr Besser and his team captured a man thought to have died from the virus seen moving on film.

The man was filmed being prepared for burial when he was seen twitching his arm on the camera.

In this case, it is understood that the man being filmed was mistakenly thought to be dead, but the advanced levels of his condition explain how the mistake, while shocking for viewers, could have been made.

Dr Besser says in the report: “It doesn’t look to me like he is going to make it, there are very few signs of life.”