CHINA:THE FOOD scandal involving contaminated milk is escalating into a national crisis in China after the health ministry said a third baby had died and 6,244 infants across the country have fallen ill from toxic milk formula.
Authorities said that two of the 22 companies found with the dangerous chemical melamine in their milk powder had exported the formula to Bangladesh, Burundi, Gabon, Burma and Yemen. Tainted yoghurt has also been found in Hong Kong.
The "Made in China" brand has been badly tarnished in recent years by a rash of food and product safety scares, ranging from lead paint in toys, to dumplings laced with pesticide sold in Japan, to toxic fish and poisonous cough medicine.
The government swore it would improve testing and safety procedures after last year's scandals, but there have been whispers that authorities tried to cover up the revelations of toxic baby formula initially, so as not to sour the atmosphere ahead of the Olympic Games last month.
The first victim, a five-month-old boy, died on May 1st, four months before the scandal became public. The number of sick children so far was nearly five times more than the government had indicated earlier in the week.
Health minister Chen Zhu said many of the children hospitalised had recovered, but 1,327 remained in hospital and 158 were suffering or recovering from acute kidney failure.
Parents say they are also worried about the long-term effects of the contamination of the milk powder.
Li Changjiang, head of the nation's product quality watchdog, said every dairy producer around the country would be tested to ensure all their products were safe, and not just milk powder.
"We will finish the melamine-focused testing on dairy products at all dairy producers as soon as possible and release the results in a timely manner," Mr Li said.
Melamine is normally used to make plastics. It is added to food ingredients to make it appear that the product contains more protein than it actually does. The chemical was at the centre of a food safety row last year when Chinese-made pet food exported to the US killed cats and dogs.
The scandal is sure to have long-term repercussions for people's eating habits in China, and for the fledgling dairy industry, as the scandal has exposed the nation's biggest dairies - Sanlu, Mengniu and Olympic sponsor Yili.
Milk is not part of the staple diet and many are saying they will eliminate dairy, but formula milk is widely used for infants.
They despair of domestic dairy brands, but are also suspicious of foreign products because many are locally produced in joint ventures.