DUSHANBE, April 9, 2011, Asia-Plus  -- A Tajik sanitary watchdog group warns that many toys on store shelves pose health risks to kids.

Specialists from the Republican Service for Sanitary-and Epidemiological Supervision at the Ministry of Health (MoH) have made raids on a number of toy shops at Dushanbe’s central markets and the raids’ outcomes have proved to be deplorable, the sanitary watch group head Navrouz Jaffarov told reporters in Dushanbe on April 8.

“Dangerous toys containing toxic chemicals were found among children’s playthings,” noted Jaffarov, “In some of them, phenol exceeds an acceptable dose five times.  Even small doses of phenol may cause headache, sickness and weakness.”

Jaffarov stressed that MoH planned to apply to the Customs Service and the Agency for Standardization, Certification and Metrology in the near future for putting ban on import of toys with health risks into the country.  According to him, the majority of such toys are delivered to the country, primarily from China, illegally and practically no one of them has certificate of quality.

Since its establishment in 2007, the lab at the Agency for Standardization, Certification and Metrology has rejected 19 items of toys (676 items were tested from 2007 to 2010) and 445 kilograms of such toys have been withdrawn from store shelves.