BEIJING - THE Chinese company whose tainted baby milk triggered a food safety scare that has drawn in 53,000 sick children failed to report complaints about the product for months, state media said on Tuesday.

Sanlu Group, the dairy firm first found to be selling melamine-contaminated goods, began receiving complaints of sick children last December, Xinhua news agency reported, citing a cabinet probe.

It also said Communist officials in the north Chinese city of Shijiazhuang, where Sanlu is based, delayed referring the matter to higher authorities for more than a month after they finally were told of it in early August.

'They violated rules on reporting major incidents involving food safety,' Xinhua said, quoting the cabinet probe.

The Xinhua report appeared to be the first official admission that delays in reporting the risks were deliberate.

Reports of tainted milk only emerged in state-run media earlier this month.

Sanlu Group did not begin testing its milk until June and failed to report the matter to local authorities until August 2, the Xinhua report said.

The government has blamed tainted products for four deaths, and said late on Sunday that 12,892 children remained hospitalised with kidney problems, 104 of them in serious condition.

'If the safety supervision mechanism is not reformed, it's likely that such a scandal would break out again,' warned Mr Chen Junshi, a senior researcher with China's National Institute for Nutrition and Food Safety. -- AFP