By Ram Dutt Tripathi BBC News, Lucknow

Encephalitis can be transferred from pigs to humans

Encephalitis - or brain fever - has killed nearly 400 people in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh over the past month.

The disease is endemic among pigs and is transmitted to humans by mosquitoes.

Doctors have complained that a lack of vaccines has hampered their ability to fight the disease.

Health Minister Anbumani Ramdoss said that he was depressed by the lack of sanitation in the disease-affected areas of Uttar Pradesh.

He ordered the state to take bold steps to move pigs out of areas of human habitation.

Officials said that he had been upset by the sight of pigs wandering freely in the grounds of some hospitals.

Shortages

A team of doctors from Gorakhpur - one of the worst-affected districts - said that the main hospital in the area lacks a virology laboratory to properly detect the virus, ventilators and sufficient vaccines.

These pig owners have contracted the disease

Mr Ramdoss said the government would provide more ventilators for hospitals, mosquito nets for the affected areas and apparatus for large-scale spraying.

Professor KP Kushwaha of Gorakhpur Medical College, who was present at the meeting, told the BBC that Mr Ramdoss had also promised to procure more vaccines for the state.

Meanwhile India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed his concern over the spread of the disease, during a visit to the state capital Lucknow.