MORE than 170 infants in Fuyang of East China's Anhui Province have become ill in the past year from being given poor-quality milk powder. At least 13 of them have died.

Instructed by Premier Wen Jiabao, an inspection team, composed of staff from the State Food and Drug Administration, Industrial and Commercial Administration and the Health Ministry, left Beijing for Fuyang on April 19 to help local authorities handle the already serious situation there.

At Fuyang People's Hospital, the biggest hospital in the city, eight of the 66 infants under 12 months old who had been admitted for treatment have died from consuming the milk powder. The children had developed abnormally large skulls which was attributed to severe malnutrition.

Called by locals "empty milk powder", the sub-standard powder doesn't look much different from good milk powder but its nutritional value was less than that of flour.

Qi Yong, an official from the Disease Control Centre in Fuyang, said that the nutritional value of the bad powder, including fat, protein and carbohydrate was less than one third the permitted standard. Long-term consumption of the milk powder would cause malnutrition in infants and would eventually lead to death.

Doctors from Fuyang Women and Children's Hospital, added that the sick infants also had purple lips which indicated poisoning. They believe the milk powder may also contain poisonous impurities.

Last year, Fuyang conducted several city-wide milk powder inspections, and seized a total of 189 milk powder franchises selling below-standard powder. Media outlets also published the names of 33 brands which failed to meet the standard. However, some of these re-entered the market by changing their names.

Medical research shows that sub-standard milk powder, if consumed by babies for five months or more, will have a lifelong effect on their health.

According to the Beijing Youth Daily, most of the sub-standard milk powder was sold to people in the countryside.

Due to their poor financial situation, some families took their ill children out of the hospital and back home although the children had not fully recovered.

The nutrients the hospital was giving to the malnourished infants was costing about 200 yuan (US$24) a day which was beyond the reach of poor families.

After taking the children home, the parents, apart from using some better-quality milk powder, cannot do anything more to treat their children.

Currently, the Fuyang Disease Control Centre is testing milk powder samples sent in every day by worrying local mothers. They have tested some 50 types of milk powder and 60 per cent were found to be sub-standard and harmful to the infants.

As the factory addresses on the packaging are not correct, investigation into where the sub-standard powder was coming from is still continuing. One report says most of the powder may be from Inner-Mongolia and places in Northeast China.

Almost all the cities in China have started conducting inspections of the milk powder market. A recent report on Eastday.com, said that milk powder suspected of being sub-standard had been found in Zhengzhou of Henan Province, and Chengdu of Sichuan Province.

"Up to now, I don't think we have achieved the efficient production of nutritious and tasty diary products," said Gu Jiasheng, deputy secretary of the Shanghai Dairy Association.

"I think this is the result of poor administration in the industry."

According to the traditional system, the milk industry was subordinated to a variety of different departments, such as light industry or agriculture, as well as to supply and marketing agencies in the countryside. Even today there is still no single official department taking overall responsibility for supervising milk production.

"Sometimes multiple departments produce contradictory regulations and establish overlapping administrations, but no one seems to care enough about it," Gu said.

(Star News)