LIBREVILLE, Sept 25, 2008 (AFP) - Gabon said Thursday it would send back to China tens of thousands of Chinese milk products, most of which contain the toxic chemical at the centre of a widening child infection scandal.

A number of other African countries have meanwhile suspended imports of Chinese milk products.

The consignment to be shipped back to China comprises 71,729 boxes of milk powder found to contain the industrial chemical melamine and another 45,000 still to be checked for the chemical, officials said.

'We have decided to send back, as a precautionary measure, all the cargo to China. It will be packed into containers to be sent back,' said Gabon's top food official Anne Marie Kassa Ndongo.

'The stock is large and we do not have the technical means to destroy it,' she said, adding that all Chinese brands of milk product were being returned and not just those known to contain melamine.

Gabonese officials said no cases of illness related to the consumption of the Chinese milk products had been reported so far.

Gabon last week banned the import of Chinese milk, whatever the brand, until further notice and said powder from China already on sale would be pulled from the shelves.

Togo joined several other African countries including Burkina Faso, Burundi and Tanzania on Thursday in suspending Chinese imports of milk products. Benin also announced it had suspended imports.

'The import, distribution and sale of all milk products coming from China is banned until further notice,' said a joint statement issued by the Togolese ministries of health, commerce, farming and fishing.

The Togolese authorities invited distributors who had imported Chinese milk products since March to hand over their stocks.

Two of the Chinese milk companies fingered in the scandal export their goods principally to Bangladesh, Burundi, Gabon, Myanmar and Yemen.

Altogether 53,000 Chinese children have been sickened and four have died after drinking milk containing the industrial chemical melamine.

So far, the only five cases outside mainland China of children falling ill through tainted milk have been reported in Hong Kong.

The European Commission said Thursday it was preparing an 'explicit, total' ban on all products originating from China for infants and young children containing milk, a spokeswoman told journalists.