Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad will brief senior bureaucrats who have been tasked to visit various state to help them contain the spread of H1N1 virus that has claimed eight lives and infected 960 people.

"The health minister will be meeting joint secretaries and additional secretaries drawn from various departments. He will be briefing them and advising them about capacity buildings in the states," a health official told IANS ahead of the meeting Tuesday evening.