NEW DELHI () -- Health groups fighting a major malaria outbreak in India have said hundreds of thousands could die unless the government takes urgent steps to combat the disease.


An Indian Red Cross official said Saturday 78,087 people had tested positive for cerebral malaria, a mosquito-borne disease that broke out four weeks ago, in a single district of Rajasthan state and that 4,000 people had died.


The government, however, dismissed the figures as exaggerated, saying less than 300 had died from the disease. India is still recovering from an outbreak of pneumonic plague which claimed the lives of 57 people.