BEIJING - KOALA-SHAPED cookies from a major Japanese confectioner were the latest products caught up in China's tainted milk scandal on Friday, while Taiwan reported three babies with kidneystones in the island's first cases possibly linked to the crisis.
Still, the World Health Organization said it did not expect the number of victims to grow dramatically. Powdered milk laced with the industrial chemical melamine has been blamed in the illnesses of some 54,000 children and the deaths of four infants, but WHO China representative Hans Troedsson said public awareness of the issue meant many young children were getting health checks and avoiding tainted products.
'I think we will see some more cases, but not the high number like so far,' he said. 'I think the recall and more thorough investigation and testing are now starting to eliminate some of these contaminated products from coming out to the public.'
The list of problematic products continued to grow, with the government in the Chinese territory of Macau saying late on Thursday they had found levels of melamine at 24 times the safety limit in Koala's March cookies made by Lotte China Foods Co. The company is a member of Tokyo-based conglomerate Lotte Group.
An official at Lotte (China) Investment Co. Ltd. in Shanghai said on Friday previous inspections had not shown any problems.
'But now that it tested positive in Macau, we find it necessary to do the inspections all over again,' said Mr Guo Hongming, a legal assistant in the Lotte Shanghai's corporate planning department.
Company spokesman Ruka Mizuno in Tokyo said products sold in Japan are not made with Chinese dairy ingredients.
Hundreds of international food companies have set up operations in China in recent years, exposing them to the country's notorious product safety problems.
Melamine-tainted products have turned up in an increasing number of Chinese-made exports abroad - from candies to yogurt to rice balls.
Only some types of milk powder and milk had been recalled in mainland China so far, but the maker of one of China's most popular candies said on Friday it had halted sales because of suspected melamine contamination. White Rabbit brand creamy candies have already been pulled from shelves around Asia and in Britain.
'It's a tragedy for the Chinese food industry and a big lesson for us as it ruined the time-honored brand,' Mr Ge Junjie, a vice president Bright Foods (Group) Co. Ltd., was quoted as saying by the Shanghai Daily.
Bright Foods' subsidiary Guangshengyuan produces White Rabbit.
Mr Ge was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency on Friday that the company was waiting for test results from the Shanghai Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau.
'We decided to halt all sales of White Rabbit candy, although the test results have not yet come out,' Mr Ge said.
Concern about White Rabbit candies has also spread to South America, where Surinamese health authorities ordered food markets to stop selling it as a precautionary measure. White Rabbit candies are widely available in Suriname, where people of Chinese heritage make up roughly 8 per cent of the population.
In Taiwan, where there have been huge concerns about the safety of milk and related products imported from China, Pizza Hut said on Friday it had suspended supplying cheese powder found to be contaminated by melamine.
Mr Wu Yu-ping, an official of Pizza Hut's Taiwan branch, said the tainted cheese was supplied by Taiwan's Kaiyuan Company, but its source is not known.
Taiwanese authorities announced Friday the first reported cases on the island of illnesses that may be related to tainted Chinese milk products.
Three Taiwanese children - two 3-year-old girls and a one-year-old boy - who had been consuming Chinese milk formula werefound to have kidney stones. One of the girls' mother also has kidney stones, said Mr Liu Yi-Lien, health chief of Ilan County in eastern Taiwan.
'They have all consumed Chinese milk, but more tests are needed to establish the link to their kidney stones,' Mr Liu said.
Five other children have become ill as a result of using melamine-tainted products in the Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macau.
On Thursday, the European Union banned imports of baby food containing Chinese milk. The move by the 27-nation EU adds to the growing list of countries that have banned or recalled Chinese dairy products because of the contamination.
Health experts say ingesting a small amount of melamine poses no danger, but in larger doses, the chemical - used to make plastics and fertilizer - can cause kidney stones and lead to kidney failure.
Infants are particularly vulnerable. -- AP