Patrick O'Connell: "Coca-cola have attributed responsibility with quality control"

The company has said it has identified two possible causes for the poisoning of about 100 Belgian school children.

The director-general of Coca-Cola Enterprises Belgium, Philippe Lenfant, told a news conference that a bottling plant in Antwerp had used the "wrong" carbon dioxide to put the fizz in soft drinks bottles.

Cans produced in France for the Belgian market, meanwhile, were contaminated with a fungicide used to treat "a small number" of transportation pallets.

According to the Belgian authorities, the drinks had triggered a blood disorder that causes the destruction of red blood cells among people who had drunk Coca-Cola.

• The European Commission has now alerted all EU member countries to the possible threat posed by Coca-Cola drinks.
• The Belgian authorities have removed all beverages made by the company from the shelves.
• Luxembourg followed suit on Tuesday and ordered Coca-Cola products to be removed from its shelves as a precaution although there have not been any cases of poisoning in the country.
• France has withdrawn drinks bottled at Coca-Cola plant at Dunkirk near the Belgian border.
• And in the Netherlands, the Coca-Cola company itself has withdrawn all its Belgian-produced beverages that were on sale there.

Risk list

A list of suspect drinks produced by the company has now been issued to European Union countries by the commission. They include not just Coke itself, but other Coca-Cola brands like Fanta, Sprite, Nestea, Kinley tonic, Lift and juice drinks sold under the Minute Maid name as well as Bon Aqua and Aquarius lemon, orange and grapefruit.

A Coca-Cola spokeswoman told Belgium radio that the cause of the problem remained a mystery.

"We are searching frantically and hope to have a definitive answer in the next few days," she said.

A spokesman for the European Commission said he believed the problem was mainly confined to Belgium and the company's bottling plants there, but France and the Netherlands may have received some exports.

Coca Cola: A globally recognised brand

As yet the cause of the poisoning is not known, and the company says tests have found nothing toxic in the drinks. But about 100 children have fallen ill with symptoms of nausea and headaches, and a number have been taken to hospital.

This latest sales ban comes as Belgium is still reeling from a food scare linked to the contamination of meat and eggs by the cancer-causing chemical, dioxin.

That led the government to ban sales of chicken, pork, beef, eggs and meat products.

Coca-Cola has been active in Belgium for 70 years. It has large bottling operations in Antwerp and Ghent.

UK concern

A spokesman for Coca-Cola in the UK said he could not confirm that none of the affected cans had found their way into Britain.

It is not uncommon for cans of Coke produced in France and the rest of Europe to be on sale in the UK.

Shop owners take advantage of the cheaper prices in other European states and sell the product on to UK consumers.

The spokesman explained: "No Coca-Cola brands produced and packaged in the UK are affected by the situation in Belgium.

"As far as I know, tests are being conducted on the products involved and initial results point to packaging problems.

"However, we can't stop anyone importing our products into the UK from the rest of the European Union. That would be unlawful. It is possible that Belgian product is in the UK but we have no knowledge of that."