Taipei - Taiwan's health authorities said all food and beverages using Chinese dairy ingredients must be pulled off the shelves by 10 pm (1400 GMT) Wednesday, in the latest fallout of the Chinese tainted milk scandal.

"We have decided to adopt what could be the world's most stringent measure by imposing a sweeping, temporary ban on the sale of all such products to ensure the health and safety of our consumers," said Sung Yen-jen, deputy director general of the Department of Health.

He said products found to contain the industrial chemical melamine would be confiscated and destroyed, while those tested negative for the toxic chemical would be issued with clearance certificates and put back for sale.

His comments came after test results showed Tuesday night nine of the 16 products sent by five local importers for inspection were found to have contained melamine, blamed for the death of at least four babies in China and sickening tens of thousands of Chinese infants.

Sung was reluctant to estimate the losses by local firms, but health officials said the products temporarily banned for sale are estimated to value more than 1 billion Taiwan dollars (31 million US dollars).

On Tuesday, in addition to sending a team of food safety experts and doctors to China to gather data concerning the snowballing tainted powdered milk scandal, Taiwan Premier Liu Chao-shiuan also decided to set up a system modeled on the US Food and Drug Administration to improve local food safety inspection.

Taiwan had imported 25 tons of tainted baby formula made by China's Sanlu Group and an unknown amount of tainted dairy products made by other Chinese companies, but so far no known sickness or deaths among Taiwanese consumers have been reported.

Taiwan suspended the import of Chinese dairy products on Sunday after detecting the chemical melamine in coffee creamer, corn soup, milk, tea and bread across the island. (dpa)