The number of babies in China sickened after drinking contaminated milk powder has risen to about 580, state media reported Monday, citing a senior official.
The figure for babies afflicted with kidney stones, reported by the China Daily newspaper, was up from 432 published by the health ministry on Saturday. One baby died.
The paper cited Li Changjiang, minister of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.
Li also told the paper investigations focused on milk collecting stations, rather than dairy farmers, in trying to find out how the baby formula ended up with dangerous levels of melamine, a chemical used to make plastic and glues.
Nineteen people detained so far in the milk contamination case are from private milk collecting stations, he said.
"It's unlikely that dairy farmers mixed the industrial chemical melamine in fresh milk. We believe the contamination is more likely to have occurred at milk collecting stations," he said.
This is in contrast to initial statements from Sanlu Group, the company at the centre of the scandal, blaming "defective" fresh milk supplied by dairy farmers for the contamination, the paper said.
