SEOUL, Oct 2, 2008 (AFP) - South Korea's food safety agency said Thursday it has banned the import of milk products from New Zealand which were used in baby formula after discovering traces of the harmful chemical melamine.

Government officials said it was the first case of melamine-tainted food from a country other than China.

The Korea Food and Drug Administration said two of nine shipments of lactoferrin from New Zealand's Tatua Cooperative Dairy were found to contain 1.9 to 3.3 parts per million of melamine.

It said it had found no traces of melamine in 19 local baby formula brands which used lactoferrin as of Wednesday. Tests on more products were underway.

The agency had previously banned the import of all products containing Chinese powdered milk due to fears of melamine contamination.

Tainted milk products have made nearly 53,000 children ill in China and killed four of them.