New Delhi, Sept 20 (IRNA) The Indian Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Anbumani Ramadoss said that the government intends to eliminate polio from the country by 2007.

Speaking at a function on declaration of 'Yaws' elimination from India here on Tuesday he said if the world has to succeed India has to succeed and if India has to succeed, Uttar Pradesh has to succeed.

Ramadoss stated that he is going to Uttar Pradesh on October 16 and would meet all concerned including non-governmental organizations, minorities, field publicity officers and others to make polio eradication a movement.

He said World Health Organization (WHO) has been guiding the government in the elimination of polio in the country. He said at present 90 percent polio cases are from Uttar Pradesh.

The health minister also stated that in UP and Bihar Injectible Polio Virus (IPV) would be taken as a pilot project and the UNICEF would finance it.

Ramadoss said that after the complete elimination of polio from the country, only IPV would be used instead to oral polio drops.

He stated that Yaws disease has been reported from 49 tribal districts of 10 states.

The Yaws eradication program which was launched in 1996-97 as a pilot project in Koraput district, Orissa and was expanded to cover all endemic districts in 1999. The program has been monitored through routine surveillance, case search reports, review meetings by program officers, appraisal by independent experts, sero-surveillance among under-five year children and task force meetings.

Meanwhile, rattled by a spurt in polio cases which have touched a figure of 297 this year, the Union Health Ministry has called an emergency meeting of health ministers and officials of polio affected states scheduled to be held in the capital on September 21.

Ramadoss has called a meeting of health ministers and health secretaries of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi, Uttaranchal, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana.

The meeting also comes in the backdrop of United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan reportedly writing to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressing concern over the increase in polio cases in the country.

A total of 297 cases were reported till September 15 as against a total of 66 cases reported in 2005.

Uttar Pradesh presented an alarming picture with a total of 269 cases with Moradabad district reporting as many as 56 cases this year.

Other western UP districts like Muzaffarnagar has reported 25 cases, Badaun and Meerut accounted for 24 cases each, Bijnor (23), Ramput (21), J P Nagar (19), Bareilly (13), Ghaziabad (11), Aligarh and Bulandshahar (6 each) among others.

According to official sources in the Union Health Ministry, "The state government has not been able to implement the program properly.

It is failure on the part of the district administration. Everything is provided by the Central government."