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TAIPEI: Taiwan's health minister said Thursday that six Nestle milk products were banned from sale after they were found to be tainted with melamine.
"The products from (the Chinese province of) Heilongjiang tested positive for very low levels of melamine and removed from the shelves," said the minister, Yeh Ching-chuan.
The tainted items, manufactured by Heilongjiang-based Shuangcheng Nestle Co and sold under the labels Nestle and Klim, include formulas for children and milk products for the elderly, according to the health department.
The Nestle products were added to a growing list of tainted Chinese-made dairy products found on the island including milk, creamers, instant coffee, soups and sweets.
Taiwan has banned all Chinese dairy imports and ordered those products already imported to be tested for traces of melamine.
Around 10 per cent of Taiwan's imported milk powder came 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.
A Taiwanese hospital last week said three toddlers and one woman have developed kidney stones after drinking tainted Chinese milk products, in the island's first confirmed cases.
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 over the contaminated milk scandal.
Four children have died in China and 53,000 were sickened after consuming milk products laced with melamine.
- AFP/yb
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