The death toll of a cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe has risen to 2,024 with a total of 39,806 accumulated cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.

On Monday alone, 117 new deaths and 1,472 new cases were recorded, according to a latest update released by the agency.

Zimbabwe's worst cholera outbreak in history started in August, and now all the provinces of the south African country have been affected.

The main causes of the size of this outbreak are the long-term collapse of the country's water and sanitation infrastructure, and more recently, the collapse of its health system, according to WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl.

WHO estimated that in the worst case, 6 million people in Zimbabwe, or half of the total population, could contract cholera.

(Xinhua News Agency January 14, 2009)