China, Vietnam and Russia have banned the import of milk powder and whey protein from the New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra after a botulism scare.

The company warned on Saturday that a batch of whey protein produced last year contained bacteria that could lead to the illness. The ingredient was exported to factories in China, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Australia.

Chinese shops cleared hundreds of tonnes of food products from their shelves and officials in Wellington said Beijing had banned imports of all Fonterra milk powder and whey protein. They added that Moscow had banned all New Zealand dairy goods despite not receiving any of the affected products.

The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said botulism was a rare but serious paralytic illness which could be fatal. Symptoms included double vision, blurred vision, drooping eyelids, slurred speech, difficulty swallowing, dry mouth and muscle weakness.

The case is a blow to New Zealand, which has thrived on a reputation for high-quality food products. Dairy products account for about a quarter of its exports and the industry is worth £6.1bn. Fonterra is the world's fourth-largest dairy company and this year announced plans to build a new plant in China.

The scare is likely to cause particular concern in China, where consumers have increasingly turned to foreign products after numerous food scandals involving domestic goods.

Imported dairy goods are particularly popular because of the 2008 milk powder case, in which at least six infants died and 300,000 were made ill by melamine-tainted formula made by Sanlu.

Chinese customs data cited by state media said milk powder imports from New Zealand jumped 34.3% in the first half of this year, compared with the same period of 2012, to reach 371,000 tonnes. The country is New Zealand's biggest trading partner.

Fonterra's chief executive, Theo Spierings, told a press conference in Beijing on Monday that products containing the whey protein sold by Coca-Cola and the Chinese firm Wahaha – one of the country's biggest food producers – were safe.

"We regret the distress and anxiety which this issue could have caused," Spierings said. "Parents have the right to know that infant nutrition and other products are safe."

Fonterra said it had received no reports of any ill health linked to consumption of the affected products.

Coca-Cola said it had used 25kg (55lb) of the tainted protein in one batch of a Minute Maid drink that was shipped to three Chinese provinces, but that its own experts and external authorities had confirmed the products were safe.

"This is due to the ultra-high-temperature manufacturing process we use, and also the low acidity, which sanitises the final product," it said.

Wahaha was recalling affected products despite finding no signs of contamination in them, said the group's chairman, Zong Qinghou.

Other affected companies in China are Shanghai Tangjiu and Dumex Baby Food. Dumex had already sold more than 400 tonnes of milk powder products made with the affected whey protein, according to state media, citing Chinese safety authorities.

The New Zealand company Nutricia and Malaysia's Danone Dumex had also recalled some batches of baby milk.

Australian officials said they had quarantined potentially affected baby milk but did not believe it had gone on sale, while Thai officials were expected to make an announcement on Monday.

John Key, the New Zealand prime minister, questioned why the company waited until Friday to alert authorities to the risk. Tests highlighted a potential problem in March.

Fonterra said a product had tested positive in spring for Clostridium – the genus of bacteria which includes Clostridium botulinum, which causes botulism – but because most Clostridium strains are harmless it had had to carry out further tests to assess whether there was a risk.

In the 2008 melamine scandal, Fonterra blew the whistle on Sanlu, its Chinese business partner, after local officials failed to alert the central government to the contamination. That case prompted many Chinese families to turn to imported milk powder despite the higher cost.

Supermarkets in countries from Australia to the UK now limit how many cans of baby formula people can buy because Chinese visitors have been purchasing so many. Visitors to Hong Kong are greeted by announcements at the airport reminding them that they may not carry more than two cans to the mainland.

Yang Jing, a father from Zhengzhou in Henan province, said that he and his wife fed their child with imported Dutch milk powder and that the scare would not deter them from buying foreign formula.

He pointed out that unlike in the Sanlu scandal – where milk producers deliberately added melamine because it boosted their results in nutritional tests – the problems appeared to have occurred by accident.

"The problem was discovered by New Zealand, not China. I think the quality checking system in western countries is better than ours," he said.

(Published by The Guardian – July 5, 2013)