Saturday, September 27, 2008
CHINESE provinces have reported nearly 10,000 additional cases of children who have developed kidney illnesses after drinking toxic milk formula in recent days, local media reported yesterday.
The problem was confirmed to have spread to neighbouring Japan yesterday, when Marudai Food Co said melamine had been found in some of its recalled products made with Chinese milk, including "Cream Panda" buns, which appeal to children.
In China, attention on the growing milk scandal was at least temporarily diverted to the launch late on Thursday of the country's third manned space mission.But Beijing continues to battle public alarm and international dismay after thousands of Chinese children were hospitalised, sick from milk formula tainted with melamine, a cheap industrial chemical that can be used to cheat quality checks. Four have died.
China's Ministry of Health has not issued a fresh count of infants suffering kidney problems and complications since Sunday.
It said then that 12,892 were in hospital, 104 with serious illness, and close to 40,000 others were affected but did not need major treatment.
However, more recent counts from province-level health authority numbers across the country showed that at least another 9,959 cases have been diagnosed this week with illnesses linked to the toxic milk.
Much of that rise was in Hebei, the northern province that is home to Sanlu Dairy group, which made the contaminated formula that sparked the broader milk scandal.
The Hebei Daily (hbrb.hebnews.cn) said Hebei province alone had diagnosed 13,773 cases up to Thursday, an increase of 4,794 on four days earlier.
Shao Mingli, head of the State Food and Drug Administration, warned his staff that the government would not tolerate cover-ups or reporting delays, after local officials sat on news for at least a month if not longer that Sanlu's milk was suspect.
"Under no circumstances turn a deaf ear to people's complaints and pretend they do not exist," he told a meeting, according to the transcript of a speech on the watchdog's web site (www.sda.gov.cn).
There are no numbers available yet for China's big commercial hub, Shanghai, but state media said many infants there may have been affected.
"A recent city-wide health check of children under three years old showed about five percent were diagnosed with symptoms of possible kidney stones after being fed contaminated powdered milk," the China Daily reported.
The count of recent provincial-level numbers indicated 1,019 additional children were hospitalised this week. But the statistics did not make clear if those cases were included in or separate from the larger number diagnosed with kidney damage.
The count from provincial sources showed no new deaths. The World Health Organisation representative in China said effective medical help made many more deaths unlikely.
"We don't expect a large increase in the number of deaths, because we have to remember that a child usually doesn't die from a kidney stone itself, but from its complications," WHO representative Hans Troedsson told a news conference in Beijing.
"... the treatment has been shown (to be) effective in China," he said. Reuters
The problem was confirmed to have spread to neighbouring Japan yesterday, when Marudai Food Co said melamine had been found in some of its recalled products made with Chinese milk, including "Cream Panda" buns, which appeal to children.
In China, attention on the growing milk scandal was at least temporarily diverted to the launch late on Thursday of the country's third manned space mission.But Beijing continues to battle public alarm and international dismay after thousands of Chinese children were hospitalised, sick from milk formula tainted with melamine, a cheap industrial chemical that can be used to cheat quality checks. Four have died.
China's Ministry of Health has not issued a fresh count of infants suffering kidney problems and complications since Sunday.
It said then that 12,892 were in hospital, 104 with serious illness, and close to 40,000 others were affected but did not need major treatment.
However, more recent counts from province-level health authority numbers across the country showed that at least another 9,959 cases have been diagnosed this week with illnesses linked to the toxic milk.
Much of that rise was in Hebei, the northern province that is home to Sanlu Dairy group, which made the contaminated formula that sparked the broader milk scandal.
The Hebei Daily (hbrb.hebnews.cn) said Hebei province alone had diagnosed 13,773 cases up to Thursday, an increase of 4,794 on four days earlier.
Shao Mingli, head of the State Food and Drug Administration, warned his staff that the government would not tolerate cover-ups or reporting delays, after local officials sat on news for at least a month if not longer that Sanlu's milk was suspect.
"Under no circumstances turn a deaf ear to people's complaints and pretend they do not exist," he told a meeting, according to the transcript of a speech on the watchdog's web site (www.sda.gov.cn).
There are no numbers available yet for China's big commercial hub, Shanghai, but state media said many infants there may have been affected.
"A recent city-wide health check of children under three years old showed about five percent were diagnosed with symptoms of possible kidney stones after being fed contaminated powdered milk," the China Daily reported.
The count of recent provincial-level numbers indicated 1,019 additional children were hospitalised this week. But the statistics did not make clear if those cases were included in or separate from the larger number diagnosed with kidney damage.
The count from provincial sources showed no new deaths. The World Health Organisation representative in China said effective medical help made many more deaths unlikely.
"We don't expect a large increase in the number of deaths, because we have to remember that a child usually doesn't die from a kidney stone itself, but from its complications," WHO representative Hans Troedsson told a news conference in Beijing.
"... the treatment has been shown (to be) effective in China," he said. Reuters
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