Lack of cash for vaccines overcrowding hospitals

"Twelve children died overnight, eight of them in Gorakhpur alone," said Utta Pradesh state health chief O.P. Singh, referring to the worst-hit eastern district some 250km southeast of the provincial capital Lucknow.

Most of the victims so far have been children with some 700 fighting for their lives in hospitals across Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, Singh told AFP.

Vaccination, he said, was the only way to halt the spread of the mosquito-borne disease but state authorities did not have enough vaccines.

Each shot costs 50 rupees (1.1 dollars) but the state's medical budget is not big enough to pay for the 7.5 million doses needed, Singh said.

"The health budget is 1.06 billion rupees (23 million dollars) while vaccines would have cost the state over three billion rupees," Singh said. adding it was impossible to raise the money.

The state's chief microbiologist, T.N. Dhole, who returned Sunday after leading a scientific team to Gorakhpur, painted a bleak picture of the situation in the remote area.

"It is catastrophic," he said. "The toll must be much, much higher because the government is only taking into account the deaths reported in state-run hospitals.