A US military plane with several tons of urgently needed baby milk powder landed in the US state of Indiana on Sunday. The plane with more than 31 tons of baby food had taken off from the German US base in Ramstein a few hours earlier. US President Joe Biden announced a second delivery on Sunday evening (local time). “We got a second flight to transport Nestle’s special infant formula to Pennsylvania,” he said on Twitter.
There has been a shortage of baby milk powder in the USA for several months. Biden announced an airlift last week to bring in baby food from abroad to meet demand. The next delivery should arrive and be distributed “in the coming days”, he explained.
The first shipment covers about 15 percent of immediate needs, the president’s economic adviser, Brian Deese, told CNN. The infant formula was flown to Indiana, where a Nestlé hub is located. There it will be tested for quality in a nearby laboratory before it is distributed in the country.
The reason for the shortage of baby food is a chain of circumstances: During the corona pandemic, the production of baby milk powder fell due to supply bottlenecks and a lack of staff. Then, in February, Abbott was forced to close a milk powder factory in Michigan after the deaths of two infants. The Food Safety Authority’s inspection showed that the product was fine – only last week the authority and Abbott agreed to resume production. But it will be weeks before the milk powder is back on the supermarket shelves.
Source: Nachrichten
