No melamine-related illness found in Philippines - Lifestyle News

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.