BEIJING?China Tuesday vowed to prevent toxic milk from reaching processors and export markets after an infant powder scandal that has made more than 54,000 children sick and mired the nation?s trade reputation in a fresh crisis.

Countries from Indonesia to Japan have announced strict checks and banned sales of Chinese dairy products.

Other countries have announced recalls of a variety of goods suspected of being laced with tainted milk from China.

Milk powder laced with the industrial chemical melamine has led to nearly 13,000 Chinese infants being admitted to hospital, 104 in a serious condition with kidney stones and agonizing complications. Four have died in past months.

Melamine, which can be used to cheat quality checks, has also been found in candy, buns and carton milk sold to other countries and regions, unleashing fear in markets already shaken by a string of ?made-in-China? scandals last year.

Outside the mainland, only two children in Hong Kong have so far been stricken by illness blamed on the toxic Chinese milk powder.

War on milk merchants

But with the scenes of sick infants and details of a local government cover-up alarming Chinese citizens and foreign consumers, officials vowed a shake-up. China will have to speed up the passage of a food safety law, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) representative.

Agriculture Minister Sun Zhengcai said he would ?battle? merchants who had been blamed for selling adulterated milk to dairy companies.

?There can be no compromise in fulfilling every task of the clean-up,? Sun said.

China has said it found melamine in nearly 10 percent of milk and drinking yoghurt samples from three major dairy companies?Mengniu Dairy Co., the Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group and the Bright Dairy group.

Sun singled out local ?milk stations,? which collect fresh milk from farmers and sell it on. Their operators have been blamed for adding nitrogen-rich melamine to substandard or watered-down milk, fooling quality checks measuring protein. Many operators are unregistered and unregulated.

?The intermediate link in purchasing raw milk is basically out of control,? he said. ?These grave problems and this state of disorder have reached the stage where a clean-up is unavoidable.?

Strict inspections

The milk scare has had an ?adverse effect on the reputation of our products,? the Ministry of Commerce said in a directive.

?There will be strict inspections of businesses producing and exporting dairy products, food, pharmaceuticals, toys, furniture and other things concerning physical safety.?

US coffee giant Starbucks has stopped serving drinks with milk in many Chinese outlets.

Markets that have banned or recalled Chinese milk products include Japan, Brunei, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Cambodia and Indonesia.

Leading Japanese manufacturer Marudai Food Co. is recalling thousands of products, while authorities have ordered importers and quarantine stations to scrutinize Chinese dairy products.

Canada has expanded checks for possibly tainted Chinese dairy products. The European Union is expected to issue this week an expert opinion on whether processed goods with Chinese milk ingredients pose a health threat.

Taiwan plans to send experts to China to examine the milk powder contamination after the self-governed island banned all mainland dairy products. Malaysia extended its ban on Chinese dairy products to chocolates, sweets and other foods containing milk.

Vietnam directive

Vietnam ordered its market and health inspectors nationwide to step up tests on milk after preliminary tests found in imported dairy products.

Vietnam, a southern neighbor of China with 86.5 million people, has not found any child made ill by Chinese milk products, but health officials warned such products may have been sold in remote areas in the impoverished central region.

The health ministry sent an urgent notice to provincial health authorities, urging them to withdraw milk without proper labeling or of unclear origin and to take samples for melamine testing.

The alert was issued after inspectors in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam?s largest city, seized more than 16,700 liters of milk produced by the Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group.

Late reporting

A senior health official in Burma (Myanmar) said plans were afoot to seize and destroy all imported Chinese baby formula as a precaution. Chinese products are widely used in military-ruled Burma, which is under trade embargoes from numerous Western countries demanding democratic reform.

China?s quality chief, Li Changjiang, resigned on Monday, joining a growing line of executives and officials accused of hiding the milk poisonings or not doing enough.

The official Xinhua news agency reported that the Sanlu Group, the dairy firm at the heart of the scandal, knew as early as June that its infant milk powder had problems.

But Sanlu officially reported the melamine poisonings to Shijiazhuang, the north Chinese city where it is based, only on Aug. 2. Shijiazhuang reported the poisoning only in Sept. 8, after the Beijing Olympics Games.

Deeper reforms

The WHO representative in Beijing, Hans Troedsson, said China needed deeper reforms to ensure safety controls were enforced, not just announced.

The country is likely to speed up the approval of a food safety law, possibly by early next year, Troedsson added.

?What is really needed if they have a good food safety law is that it really needs to be enforced,? he said. ?What needs to be stepped up is supervision, inspection and regulation at the local level.?

Shares plunge

Shares in Mengniu Dairy plunged nearly two-thirds to a 33-month low on Tuesday after brokers downgraded the stock on concerns the scandal will dent industry growth.

Shares in Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group were down 10 percent at lunch break in Shanghai and Bright Dairy group was down 7.8 percent.