On Saturday, the Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA) said that based on the recent information from the New Zealand Ministry of Commerce and Abbott Company as well as the Saudi agent, Al-Kamal Import Company Ltd, only one of the nine consignments of infant milk formula is feared to be tainted. The remaining consignments are safe because they were imported on different dates. Last Tuesday Executive Director of the Early Warning Center at the SFDA Dr. Muhammad Ahmad Al-Kanhal told Okaz/Saudi Gazette that two shipments that arrived in two batches earlier have been impounded at Jeddah Islamic Port. They were divided into nine consignments for distribution. In a statement on Saturday, the SFDA warned consumers against using Similac Gain Plus 3 with the batch numbers released earlier. It also said that it has so far taken off the shelves 420,000 milk cans of different sizes, noting that this huge number does not mean that all the tainted milk cans have been removed from the market. Last Monday, the SFDA assured consumers that dairy products from New Zealand tainted with the bacteria that could lead to botulism, a potentially fatal illness, had not been cleared for sale in the local market.
