China Revises Figures of Babies Affected By Contaminated Milk Powder

Almost 300,000 babies were taken ill due to contaminated milk powder this year, China's health ministry has said; more than five times as many cases as previously disclosed.

It also raised the melamine scandal's death toll from four to six infants, underlining the impact of the country's worst safety scare in years. More than 860 babies are still hospitalised, with 154 of those classed as severe cases.

The crisis caused public outrage because it is thought the chemical was added deliberately to allow substandard milk to pass nutrition tests and because of the cover-up.

Sanlu, the firm at the heart of the problems, knew the milk was tainted months before it told local officials. It did not contact Hebei's provincial government for another month - leaving babies to drink unsafe milk until mid-September.

In a statement released overnight, the ministry said 294,000 babies across the country had suffered from urinary problems after consuming milk powder laced with melamine. Most received outpatient treatment but 54,000 were hospitalized. In sizable quantities, the substance can cause kidney stones and even failure.

The ministry said it investigated 11 possible deaths related to melamine-tainted milk and ruled five of them out.

But several families are convinced their children died because of tainted formula but have not been counted in the death toll. "When the county health bureau first came to us, they said my child died because of the milk powder," Tian Xiaowei, a farmer from Shaanxi, whose one-year-old son died in August, told the Associated Press.

"But later, when the case was reported to the district health authority, they said there's no proof that the death was linked."

A Beijing lawyer who has aided affected families said he believed even more deaths might have gone uncounted because parents had not reported them. Chang Boyang also told AP there was no word on compensation yet.

"I assume that the government is worried about the situation of the dairies and is afraid the companies may fall if they have to pay for the compensation amid the current financial crisis," he said.

The scandal prompted authorities to announce a complete overhaul of the country's dairy industry to improve safety.

Dozens of countries imposed bans and extra checks on Chinese food products, with tests on products ranging from chocolate bars to yogurt finding traces of the substance. Low levels of the chemical are not thought harmful.

It later emerged that eggs also contained melamine because it had been added to animal feed.