China's top leaders have ordered a complete overhaul of the dairy industry amid the growing scandal over a chemical additive to milk that has killed at least four infants and sickened more than 6,000 others, state media said on Saturday.
"Local authorities should rectify the dairy industry so as to bring a fundamental change to the dairy market and products," the State Council, or cabinet, said in a circular issued after a meeting on Friday to discuss the scandal, reported dpa.
The government's official Xinhua news agency quoted the circular as saying quality supervision authorities must ensure an "all-round check on the dairy products" and that dairy companies must recall all tainted products.
The State Council, which is normally led by Premier Wen Jiabao, also urged "efforts to ensure sufficient domestic milk supply" and vowed to punish all companies, monitoring departments and officials found culpable for the widespread addition of melamine to milk products.
The government leaders demanded "all-out efforts" to save infants sickened by consuming tainted baby milk powder, the agency said.
Screening programmes should be expanded to cover remote areas where more babies may have been sickened, and hospitals should provide free examination and treatment for infants who have developed kidney stones after drinking tainted milk.
Dairy producers found to have added melamine would later be ordered to compensate local authorities for the medical costs, it said.
Three leading dairy producers - Yili, Mengniu and Bright Dairy - were stripped of the government's "famous brand" label on Friday after melamine was found in some of their products.
"In order to preserve the reputation of China's famous brands, the AQSIQ decided to revoke the titles (for the three firms)," the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said.
Health inspectors on Friday said they found melamine in some liquid milk and yoghurt sold by each of the three companies.
The highest level of melamine in liquid milk was found in Bright Dairy milk, which contained 8.6 milligrams of melamine per litre.
Melamine is used as a binding agent and coating for particle, fibre and laminated board. It is also used to make fertilizer.
The growing scandal over tainted milk products has prompted tens of thousands of parents to rush to hospitals for health checks on their children, especially in Shijiazhaung, the capital of the northern province of Hebei.
Shijiazhuang is the headquarters of Sanlu, which supplies nearly a fifth of China's market with an inexpensive baby formula implicated in many of the 6,200 reported cases of melamine-related illness.
Hebei police have formally charged 18 people who sold melamine to milk producers or sold contaminated milk in Shijiazhuang, and detained at least a dozen other milk dealers, melamine traders, company officials and local quality supervisors.
Government officials said Sanlu knew about the contamination of milk powder with melamine since March but didn't order a national recall of the powder until last week.
Inspectors found melamine in 69 batches of milk powder made by 22 companies nationwide, including some from Mengniu and Yili.
Apart from the four infants who died, at least 158 babies had developed serious kidney problems, reports said.