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TAIPEI : Three Taiwanese toddlers and one woman have developed kidney stones after drinking tainted Chinese milk products, a hospital here said on Friday, in the island's first known cases.
All four victims had frequently visited China and the three children, all aged between two and three, drank Chinese milk formula, the National Yang-Ming University Hospital said.
"The hospital screened nine children who have been drinking milk suspected of containing melamine... and three are found to have kidney stones," it said in a statement, adding the mother of one of the children also has the condition.
News of the four victims emerged as the island's new health minister vowed to tighten controls on Chinese dairy products.
"We will use strict standards like the US and Europe to ensure food safety for the public," Yeh Ching-chuan told reporters.
Yeh, a public health expert best known for leading Taipei through the SARS crisis in 2003 as the capital's deputy mayor, took over as health minister after her predecessor Lin Fang-yue resigned on Thursday over the contaminated milk scandal.
Countries around the world have banned or restricted imports of Chinese milk products after it emerged that they contained the industrial chemical melamine, usually used in the making of plastic.
Four children have died in China and 53,000 are sick after consuming milk products laced with melamine, apparently added to milk because it gives the appearance of a higher protein content.
Five children in Hong Kong have also developed kidney stones after drinking tainted Chinese milk, authorities there have said.
Taiwan has already banned all Chinese dairy imports and Yeh said Friday the government had scrapped a concession allowing milk products with low levels of melamine to be sold.
"Melamine is banned as an additive... and the government will continue to enforce the testing of (milk) products so the products allowed back on the shelves are safe," he said.
Around 10 per cent of Taiwan's imported milk powder comes from China and authorities here have seized nearly 10 tonnes of formula produced by Sanlu Group, the Chinese company originally at the centre of the health scare. - AFP/ms
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