MANILA, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- Philippine health authority on Thursday said no
melamine-related disease case has been reported so far in the country, despite
the milk contamination scare spreads across the region.
"There is nothing we can report about anyone who might have acquired an
illness in the kidney as a direct result of consuming products containing
melamine," the on-line news network INQUIRER.Net quoted Health Secretary
Francisco Duque as saying.
Duque said the Philippine health authority has been monitoring the
melamine-related illness for two weeks and is going to check more patients and
hospitals.
"So far, there has been none and I hope there will be none forever," Duque
told reporters in Tagalog language after a budget hearing at the Senate Thursday
afternoon.
Duque heads a domestic task force monitoring the products that might be
contaminated with melamine, a chemical used to make plastics but was recently
found being mixed in water-downed dairy products to boost the protein level.
Meanwhile, all products suspected of containing melamine have been called
off from market shelves while the Philippine Bureau of Food and Drugs is in the
process of testing about 52 dairy products for melamine.
A partial list of the test results will be made public on Friday, the
bureau said.