How to make Apache/mod_python process collect its zombies?

Apache/2.2.6 (Unix) DAV/2 mod_python/3.2.8 Python/2.4.4 configured ...

One of apache processes spawns some long-running python script asynchronously, and apparently doesn't seem to collect its child process table entry. After that long-run-in-subprocess python script finishes - defunct python process has been left.

# ps -ef | grep httpd
root     23911     1  0 Oct15 ?        00:00:01 /usr/sbin/httpd
...
qa       23920 23911  0 Oct15 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd


# ps -ef | grep python
...
qa       28449 23920  0 12:38 ?        00:00:00 [python] <defunct>

What is the way to make the Apache process to collect its children? Is it possible to do the job via a mod_python request handler ( like PythonCleanupHandler for example)?

Thanks.