Zimbabwe’s raging cholera epidemic has become one of the world’s largest outbreaks of the disease ever recorded, infecting more than 60,000 people and claiming more than 3,100 lives.

Fueled by economic and social crises, a lack of safe drinking water and sanitation, and a disintegrating health system, the epidemic has spread to all of Zimbabwe’s 10 provinces.

This major health emergency

In 1912, a French newspaper personified cholera as a shrouded, scythe-wielding skeleton.

Cholera probably killed U.S. President James K. Polk in 1849, shortly after he left office. This fierce water-borne disease was a major public health menace during the 19th and early 20th centuries, causing widespread death

UNICEF and other aid agencies have warned that a combination of crises in the Greater Horn of Africa

In the wake of World Water Day last month, the water crisis has come into stark relief in war-riven Iraq.