The world’s entire stock of Encephalitis vaccines is inadequate to meet India’s needs to prevent the disease that has killed 850 people in the last two months, the health minister said on Wednesday.

Several districts in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh were hit by an outbreak of Japanese Encephalitis in late July after health officials had neglected widespread vaccination drives in vulnerable areas, experts say.

Federal and state health authorities have now moved to increase domestic production as well as import vaccines to prevent future outbreaks but meeting the large demand is proving difficult, officials said.

“Unfortunately today, the total world’s capacity of vaccines does not compare with India’s requirements,” minister Anbumani Ramadoss told reporters.

He said Indian laboratories had been asked to increase production, and efforts were under way to buy stocks from South Korea, Cambodia, Vietnam, China and Japan.

“Hopefully, we will be getting 5-6 million doses,” Ramadoss added. He gave no details of India’s total vaccine requirement.

Health officials in Uttar Pradesh, an impoverished, densely populated state, say they vaccinated 400,000 children last year and aimed to cover 7.5 million children in that state alone ahead of the 2006 monsoon season when the disease is common.

The Encephalitis virus, first identified in Japan, is found in pigs and wild birds and is spread to humans by mosquitoes.

It affects the brain, with symptoms including high fever, severe headaches and convulsions that can lead to paralysis, coma and death.

The present Encephalitis outbreak is the most serious in India in nearly three decades. Most of the victims are children because their immunity levels are low and they are unable to protect themselves from mosquitoes.

Ramadoss said the fact that thousands of poor people in villages live in close proximity to pigs, or rear them for a living, made it difficult to prevent the disease.