Another two Zimbabweans with suspected cholera have been admitted to Durban's RK Khan Hospital, health department officials confirmed on Thursday.

The two were admitted on 23 November and tests are presently being carried out to determine if they have cholera.

A senior KwaZulu-Natal health department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was unknown where the two had been living and working in Durban.

RK Khan spokesperson Kamla Chetty told Sapa the two patients were Zimbabwean brothers who were working in South Africa.

"They went to Zimbabwe on November 7 and returned on 21 November. They were admitted two days later."

Health minister Barbara Hogan in a statement this week said Zimbabwe had been experiencing an outbreak of cholera since October 2008.

It started in Harare and by mid-November it had spread to nine of the country's provinces with 6072 suspected cholera cases and 294 deaths.

Zimbabweans started streaming to South Africa for help and by Monday, 24 November, border towns in South Africa's province of Limpopo reported 187 cases of cholera and three deaths.

Hogan said two truck drivers, one Zambian and the other Mozambican, were confirmed to be suffering from cholera and had been treated at the Charlotte Maxeke Hospital (formerly the Johannesburg Hospital) and Addington Hospital in Durban.

Both succumbed to the illness and died.

Hogan said that apart from Limpopo, other affected provinces in South Africa were Gauteng, with nine cholera cases and six suspected cases, KwaZulu-Natal with one confirmed case, Mpumalanga with one suspected case, and Western Cape with one suspected case.

She said her department had deployed the National Outbreak Response Team (Nort) and the Provincial Outbreak Response Team (Port) to Musina.

A Joint Operations Committee was also set up and working subcommittees were formed on the same day in Musina.

Sapa