Last week, the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) raised alarm on the discovery of fake and cloned SMA Gold infant formula (imported baby milk from Ireland) circulating in three locations in Ibadan (Oyo State), Lagos and Kano states, and consequently warned mothers to be weary of feeding babies with those tins of poison.

According to Mrs. Elizabeth Awagu, Special Assistant to NAFDAC DG, the agency was able to identify as many as 10 major differences between the fake and original SMA infant formula after close laboratory examination.

Awagu disclosed that the agency, after subjecting the fake infant milk to laboratory examination, "Our laboratory analysis of the fake SMA Gold shows that the microbial level is higher than normal, hence any baby that consumes the fake product would experience severe diarrhoea and reactions which could lead to death, if not detected early".

She revealed that the 10 differences discovered include, among others, "the differences in the aluminum stripe in between the two blue lines is wider, joined at the centre and is smooth in the original while in the fake it is thinner, about a third of the original and it is not smooth."

According to her, the fake SMA Gold 450g tin is higher than that of the genuine one. Also, the leaflet insert in the original tin is long, and polished with picture (of SMA Gold) while the other has no picture.

Besides, the milk content in the original SMA Gold is "free-flowing powder and creamier in colour with sweet and milky taste, while that of fake is dull creamy colour and not-free-flowing as well as not sweet or tasty as baby milk. When it comes to solubility, the original infant milk dissolves quickly in cold water, but the fake does not, among other different features," Awagu told newsmen.

At a separate forum, Dele Taiwo, Head, Sales and Marketing, EIL Services Nigeria Limited, one of the two licensed importers of SMA Products in West Africa, debunked the claim that his firm was responsible for the importation of the counterfeit infant milk.

He told newsmen that when their attention was drawn to the NAFDAC discovery, the company made swift effort to send samples of the fake product to the laboratory in Ireland "which is well equipped to identify the source of the faking; particularly manufacturers of the packaging tin, the printers of the leaflets among others; this will give us a clue and lead to source of counterfeiting anywhere in the world."

According to him, the product manufactured by Wyeth Nutritionals, Ireland Ltd, "is of reputable standard and has been in circulation for several years with compliance to all international standards and is duly registered with NAFDAC."

Taiwo made every effort to assure consumers that the product meets every standard and regulation for safe consumption, saying: "The parent company periodically carries out quality assurance on all products while NAFDAC crosschecks samples from all batches that are imported before they are circulated in the country."

He, like NAFDAC, therefore warned the public to watch out for the counterfeit product with batch number 6J02SG06 "that has been discovered cloned from an expired batch that was imported in 2006; the original batch number that was cloned is 6J025G06."

Investigations have shown that this is not the first time that infant formulae would encounter such challenges around the world, Nigeria inclusive.

In August 2002, a federal high court in California, U.S.A., convicted a couple for their involvement in 1999 in the faking of baby food which led to the death of several children across the world.

Mohamad Mostafa, 43, arrested in Canada in 2001, was convicted of all four counts in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury in June 2000. Mostafa fled the country in 1995 after his scheme to produce and sell large quantities of Similac was discovered.

The counterfeiting scheme quickly unravelled when numerous parents, who were familiar with the authentic Similac product, called the lawful manufacturer to complain.

Police have detained 47 people accused of making or selling fake infant formula that led to the death of dozens of children in an eastern Chinese city.

The deaths prompted a national crackdown on safety violations in China's food and drug markets, where phony medicines and other products regularly cause deaths and injuries.

State media say 50 to 60 children, mostly from poor farm families, died of malnutrition in the city of Fuyang after being fed the bogus formula, which contained only tiny amounts of nutrients.

Last June, the manufacturers of SMA Gold ready-to-use liquid recalled one batch of SMA Gold ready-to-use liquid infant milk as a precautionary measure following reports of curdling of the product.

The implication of ingesting fake or substandard infant milk formula, according to NAFDAC, "is that the baby comes down with diarrhoea, gets dehydrated and can die of infections in the stomach or any part of the alimentary canal, if this is unnoticed on time."