Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad has asked five other Ministries to tackle Japanese Encephalitis. The lethal disease has claimed 861 lives in 17 states so far.

During a meeting of Group of Ministers (GoM) on dealing with Japanese Encephalitis (JE)in New Delhi yesterday, Azad asked Ministries of Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation, Social Justice and Empowerment, Women and Child Development and Urban Development to get involved in the efforts.

He asked Ministry of Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation headed by Jairam Ramesh to strengthen measures for monitoring water quality and replace shallow hand pumps with deep bore hand pumps in Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) effected areas.