BEIJING, Sept 21: Almost 13,000 infants in China have been taken to hospital after falling ill from drinking tainted milk powder, the health ministry said on Sunday, according to the state media.

The ministry said in a briefing on the crisis that the total number of babies admitted to hospital after drinking poisoned formula was now 12,892, according to Xinhua news agency.

Four babies have died after drinking milk powder contaminated with melamine, an industrial chemical, according to government statements.

There were 104 cases in which babies showed serious symptoms, said the ministry, and 1,579 babies had been cured and left hospital, Xinhua said.

Meanwhile, Chinese leaders and health authorities were battling to contain the scandal as the first sickness from the crisis was reported outside mainland China.

Thousands of infants became sick, but no illnesses had been reported elsewhere until the Hong Kong government said a three-year-old girl had been diagnosed with a kidney stone after drinking milk containing melamine.

The girl was diagnosed with a kidney stone but was in good condition and has been discharged from the hospital, the government said in a statement on Saturday night.

The girl’s parents took her for a check-up because she had been drinking milk made by Chinese dairy Yili daily for the past 15 months. Yili Industrial Group Co is one of 22 companies whose milk and dairy products were recalled after batches of their products were found to contain melamine.

The government has launched high-profile efforts to show it is on top of the crisis, with Premier Wen Jiabao appearing on state-run television on Sunday to say diary companies had to show more “social responsibility”.

Wen was shown visiting a Beijing hospital where children were having health checks. He also stopped at a supermarket to look at dairy products.

“What we need to do now is to ensure that nothing like this happens in the future, not only in dairy products but in all food,” Wen said.

Since the problem of tainted milk products became public knowledge less than two weeks ago, the crisis has spread to include almost all of China’s biggest dairy companies. Their products have been pulled from stores around the country, and in other places such as the self-governing Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macau. Starbucks stopped offering milk in its 300 outlets in China.

Hong Kong’s two main supermarket chains said on Sunday they were recalling milk powder made by Swiss manufacturer Nestle after a newspaper reported it contains melamine.

Spokeswomen for both companies said they acted as a precaution after Hong Kong’s Apple Daily reported that tests it commissioned showed that Nestle milk powder made in China’s northeastern Heilongjiang province contained melamine.

Japan and Singapore have recalled Chinese-made dairy products, and the governments of Malaysia and Brunei announced bans on milk products from China.—Agencies