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Tokyo - More than 1 000 people have fallen ill after eating pesticide-contaminated frozen food as a scandal widens across Japan, Jiji Press reports.
People have reported vomiting, diarrhoea and other symptoms of food poisoning after eating products, including pizza and lasagne, made by a subsidiary of Maruha Nichiro Holdings, the nation's largest seafood firm.
More than 200 took ill in the northern main island of Hokkaido alone, Jiji said.
In western Osaka prefecture, a nine-month-old baby was hospitalised with vomiting after eating a product called creamy corn croquettes, the report said.
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Police began investigating the company last month after it revealed some of its frozen food had been tainted with malathion, an agricultural chemical often used to kill aphids in corn and rice fields.
Detectives are looking at the possibility that the pesticide was deliberately added to the food at some stage of production at a factory in Gunma, north of Tokyo.
The food maker has recalled 6.4 million potentially tainted products, with 1.49 million packages recovered so far.None of the products in question had been shipped overseas, the company said.
