Canada is the first country to lower its melamine standards in order to match those set recently by the World Health Organization, Canadian Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq announced Wednesday.

The WHO, at a meeting in Ottawa on Friday, determined that the tolerable daily intake of melamine that a person can ingest without appreciable health risk is 0.2 mg per kg of body weight.

Under this formula, a 110-pound person could tolerate 10 milligrams of melamine per day.

Canada, which like many other countries had slightly higher guidelines, will adopt the WHO recommendations, Aglukkaq said in a written statement.

"As the first country to adopt the World Health Organization's recommendations, Canada is a world leader in addressing the health impacts of melamine contamination in food," she said.

She also noted that Canada will reduce the amount of melamine it allows in infant formula to 0.5 parts per million from one part per million, even though the WHO had determined that one part per million in infant formula and other foods is safe.

"The health and safety of Canadians is important for our government and we are taking very seriously the concerns being raised by parents," Aglukkaq said.

She noted that even before the new standards were adopted no infant formula product in Canada has ever tested positive for melamine levels above the new 0.5 standard.

The WHO said melamine is a contaminant that should not be in food, but is sometimes unavoidable.

The new standards come as China copes with a melamine crisis. The country's health ministry said six babies died after consuming milk powder tainted with melamine, while 294,000 were sickened. The scandal exposed the practice of adding melamine to watered down milk to boost the apparent protein content in routine tests.

Melamine can cause kidney stones if consumed in excessive amounts.