The health department on Thursday detained all Chinese products containing powdered milk, on suspicion that it was contaminated with melamine.
”The department today [Thursday] issued a directive requesting all the country’s environmental health practitioners in the municipalities and metros to detain any products of Chinese origin that may contain
milk or dairy products,” said spokesperson Fidel Hadebe in a statement.
The move comes in the wake of possible contamination with melamine — a cheap industrial chemical that can be used to cheat quality checks — in certain products including infant formula, sweets and biscuits.
”The information received from the metros and municipalities will enable the department to assess and coordinate sampling requirements of products detained in order to prevent the laboratories from being flooded with samples of products,” said Hadebe.
The Consumer Goods Council and the Dairy Standards Agency had also been informed about the matter and were requested to inform their members to test suspected products for melamine.
Hadebe said the department had also verified with the agriculture department that no permits for primary dairy products were issued for Chinese imports since 2005.
”This does not however include processed products with dairy products,” Hadebe said.
Deplorable
The European Commission proposed on Thursday tests and restrictions on Chinese food products containing powdered milk as Unicef and the World Health Organisation called China’s growing milk scandal ”deplorable”.
In Hong Kong, the government said a fifth child was suffering kidney problems related to drinking tainted milk. The 10-year-old boy was found to have kidney stones.
Beijing is battling public alarm and international dismay after thousands of Chinese children were hospitalised, sick from infant milk formula tainted with melamine.
A European Commission spokesperson said EU authorities would test all products from China containing more than 15% of milk powder, and would ban all products for children and young people containing any proportion of milk.
This came as the World Health Organisation and Unicef issued a joint statement saying the deliberate contamination of food for infants and young children was ”particularly deplorable”. – Sapa, Reuters