Scientists reveal zombie symptoms for first time - how many do you recognise? 

 

Scientists have revealed the symptoms of becoming a zombie for the first time.

Once bitten, people will have a tendency to moan while their walk develops into an awkward shuffle, claims Kent State University associate professor Tara Smith.

Other symptoms include loss of dexterity and prior personality traits, and the eventual rotting of flesh, she wrote in the the respected journal BMJ.

And in rare cases, zombies may be highly intelligent and self-aware, and lacking in the typical bite-and-flesh-eating tendencies.

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The incubation period also range from mere seconds to hours or days.

Despite zombies being documented since the 1500s little formal study has been carried out into the infections that may result in zombification.

Emerging zombie infections have been identified around the globe and though sporadic are becoming a source of greater concern.

Prof Smith combined films such as Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later, the novel World War Z and medical literature to explore how the world would cope with an outbreak of zombies.

She said: "Zombies - also known as walkers, Zed, Zs, biters, geeks, stiffs, roamers, Zeke, ghouls, rotters, Zoms, and runners - have become a dominant part of the medical landscape.

"Zombie expert Matt Mogk defines a zombie with three criteria, it is a reanimated human corpse, it is relentlessly aggressive, and it is biologically infected and infectious.

"But Mogk notes that this definition has been altered by the recognition of 'rage' zombies, which are infected but still alive.

"They are more closely related to vampires infected with the contagious bacterium Bacillus vampiris."

 

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But she added what unites them is the disease is spread via bite.

As to what causes it the Solanum virus has been the most extensively studied as "it has a 100 per cent mortality rate, and if exposed to fluids of an infected individual, zombification is certain."

Non-viral zombie causes include a form of the Black Plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis, the cordyceps fungus, and a mutated strain of the prion infection, commonly known as "mad cow" disease.

Symptoms are fairly uniform too including a shambling gait, tendency to moan, loss of dexterity and prior personality traits, and the eventual rotting of flesh.

                    

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In rare cases, zombies may be highly intelligent and self-aware, and lacking in the typical bite-and-flesh-eating tendencies.

The incubation period also range from mere seconds to hours or days.

She added: "Several models of zombie infections have shown that in the event of a large scale outbreak (for example, zombie entry into a city of 500 000 or more) humans face extermination.

 

 

Chances of survival start out slightly higher in sparsely populated areas, but they eventually become overwhelmed.

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others have published details of the preparations that should be made in the case of a pending zombie outbreak.

"Unfortunately most countries remain grossly unprepared for a potential disaster of this nature."

She added the documented rise of multiple zombie pathogens should be a wake-up call to cooperate "to tackle the looming threat of apocalyptic disease."

And how we tackle an outbreak needs to be addressed as would it be legal to kill a zombie?

T
The end of the world as we know it: Governments and scientists must work together, or else
The Zombie Survival Guide 2003 notes "attacks will only increase, culminating in one of two possibilities.
"The first is that world governments will have to acknowledge, both privately and publicly, the existence of the living dead, creating special organisations to deal with the threat.
"In this scenario, zombies will become an accepted part of daily life - marginalised, easily contained, perhaps even vaccinated against.


"A second, more ominous scenario would result in an all-out war between the living and the dead"
"For the sake of humanity we must ensure that the latter scenario does not occur and that we work together as a unified global community to respond quickly to any and all new zombie threats."