The Ministry of Health will write to the Ministry of Commerce to check the New Zealand’s dairy products in Bangladesh amid a ban on New Zealand’s diary export to China.
“We need to look into it,” health minister AFM Ruhal Haque said on Monday while replying to a question at a press briefing at his office.
The ministry will soon issue a letter in this regard, he said.
China imposed the ban after elevated levels of nitrates were found in New Zealand milk products, raising further concerns over quality and testing in the world’s largest dairy exporter in the wake of a contamination scare earlier this month.
Bangladesh imports dairy products mostly from New Zealand, Australia and Denmark. A laboratory test in 2008 reportedly found the presence of harmful melamine in at least eight foreign milk powder brands. Two of them were being imported from New Zealand.
New Zealand’s agricultural regulator said on Monday it has revoked export certificates for four China-bound consignments of lactoferrin manufactured by Westland Milk Products after higher- than-acceptable nitrate levels were found by tests in China.
Two of the four consignments had been shipped to China but had not reached consumers, the Ministry of Primary Industries said.
The announcement comes just weeks after Westland’s much bigger competitor, Fonterra, said some of its dairy ingredients were contaminated with botulism-causing bacteria. This prompted a recall of infant formula products, sports drinks and other products in China, New Zealand and other Asia-Pacific nations.
A senior official in the health ministry, however, told bdnews24.com that Bangladesh does not import Fonterra products.
The health minister holds the press briefing before the launching of the rescheduled World Breastfeeding Week on August 21. The ministry rescheduled the week from August 1 to August 7 due to Ramadan and Eid.
The minister urged all to feed their babies only breast milk even not a drop of water until six months of age and continue with homemade food until two years.
“Tinned milk is harmful to the children,” he said and that starting breastfeeding within first hour of birth can cut at least 31 percent under-one-month deaths.
Source: Bd news24
