A HAMPSHIRE MP has revealed he had to persuade a constituent that Zombies do not exist – after being asked if the walking dead were spreading Ebola.

Desmond Swayne, the New Forest West MP, said the email was one of the “most bizarre” inquiries he had received as an MP.

He explained: “This chap emailed me to say he had heard on Twitter that Zombies were spreading Ebola and what did I think about it.

“Of course, it’s true that people are most infective when they are dead and there are problems with burial traditions and the washing and touching of bodies.

“But I had to tell him that, while I go to Church every Sunday and believe in the resurrection of the dead, I’m afraid I don’t believe in Zombies!”

Mr Swayne added that emails – rather than old-fashioned letters – often triggered a lengthy chain of correspondence, but added: “Mercifully, this time it didn’t.”

The MP spoke after answering a Commons debate on the killer virus in his job as an international development minister.

He told MPs that, the end of October, there had been around 5,000 deaths and 14,000 cases of Ebola as outbreak in West Africa spread.

And, describing the British operation in Sierra Leona, he said: “We have established some 83 burial teams - they have made a profound difference in Freetown.

"From only a few weeks ago with only 30 per cent of victims being buried within 24 hours, we're now at 100 per cent and that experience is going to be rolled out throughout Sierra Leone.”