Chemical blamed for infant deaths found at top producers
The mainland's milk contamination scandal escalated last night after a chemical blamed for killing two babies and leaving more than 1,200 ill was found in infant formula made by another 21 companies.
The central government ordered an immediate halt to the sale of all baby milk products by 22 companies, which include Mengniu, Yili and Sanlu - the top three dairy product manufacturers on the mainland, CCTV reported.
The order came as the first heads began to roll over the scandal, which was sparked by the discovery of tainted formula at Sanlu, a state-owned manufacturer based in Shijiazhuang , Hebei province .
Sanlu chairwoman, general manager and party secretary Tian Wenhua was removed from her posts following an emergency meeting by the Hebei provincial Communist Party Standing Committee.
Also sacked were Shijiazhuang Vice-Mayor Zhang Fawang, who is in charge of agriculture, and three other officials: the heads of the city's livestock and aquatic products, food and drug, and quality inspection bureaus.
The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine's testing found melamine contamination in baby formula made by 22 out of 109 mainland manufacturers of infant milk products.
The watchdog tested 491 batches of formula from the 109 firms and found 69 to contain varying degrees of melamine, CCTV reported.
The announcement of the test results - reported as the last domestic news item on last night's CCTV news broadcast despite the huge health risks and public interest - came just hours after Hong Kong's Centre for Food Safety found melamine in a frozen yogurt bar produced by Yili.
The Hong Kong finding has fuelled fears of wider contamination of milk products by mainland food manufacturers.
The scale of the baby formula scandal has drawn renewed criticism of the mainland's food safety record and is set to spark new international concern over products from China.
The report said only infant formula produced by Guangdong Yashili had been exported - to Bangladesh, Myanmar and Yemen - but no trace of melamine was found in the products made for export.
All 11 samples of Sanlu formula failed the safety test. The brand also recorded the highest level of contamination, with 2,563mg of melamine found per litre of the formula.
Second worst was Shanghai Panda Dairy Products. Three out of five of its samples failed the test, with one batch recording 619mg of melamine per litre of formula.
Inner Mongolia-based Mengniu, the mainland's largest dairy producer which supplied one-third of the country's market last year, was found to have melamine in three out of 28 samples tested, with levels of the chemical reaching 68.2mg per litre.
One of 35 samples of infant formula made by Yili Industrial Group, the nation's second-largest dairy producer, contained melamine at a level of 12mg per litre.
Fear and anger about the tainted milk has spread across the mainland over the past week as it emerged that authorities failed to take action after parents began complaining as early as March that their children were falling ill and suffering from kidney stones after drinking formula made by Sanlu, which supplies 18 per cent of the mainland market.
By Monday, the number of sick babies had reached 1,253. Two died.