'It is impossible that melamine is detected in our company's products,' Morinaga Milk Industry said in a statement.

A health official in the West African country said on Saturday that milk powder sent from Japan was found to be contaminated with melamine at eight times the level permitted by law.

Mr Daouda Traore, the director of Burkina Faso's National Laboratory for Public Health (LNSP), also told journalists in Ouagadougou that the milk came from a gift made to a children's health centre which came from Japan.

'If the translation (of the labels) that we were given are correct it is the Hagou Koumi brand from the Morinaga company,' the LNSP director said.

Mr Traore said that five boxes - each containing 12 cans of tainted milk - were seized in the western town of Bobo Dioulasso on October 20 and analysed later.

Morinaga said it had shipped milk powder, produced in Japan and named Hagukumi, to Burkina Faso through a Japanese charity organisation, named the Japan Overseas Missionary Activity Sponsorship (JOMAS).

'We are in the process of verifying the reported case through JOMAS but it has yet to be verified that the reported product is our company's product,' the Morinaga statement said.

It added that the company had not detected any melamine in Hagukumi milk through tests.

Four infants have died in China and 53,000 have become ill after consuming milk laced with melamine, an industrial chemical usually used in the production of plastics.

The ensuing scandal has rocked global confidence in Chinese-made foodstuffs and lead to import bans in a number of countries, including Burkino Faso.

However, a Morinaga spokesman said Hagukumi was not produced at its factory in China. -- AFP