Lead from two battery factories just a few steps from a densely populated community in east China's Anhui Province poisoned more than 200 children, putting 28 of them in hospital, the local government said yesterday.

The Borui Battery Co Ltd, which is separated from the Xinshan community in Gaohe Town by a narrow road, and the nearby Guangfa Battery Plant have both been shut down, the Huaining County government said.

Three children from the community were found to have abnormally high levels of lead in their blood at the Anhui Provincial Children's Hospital in the provincial capital, Hefei, on December 24, it said.

Subsequent checks on 280 children found that more than 200 had high levels of lead.

The children, from nine months to 16 years old, suffered from moderate to severe lead poisoning with more than 250 micrograms of lead per liter of blood, said Cheng Bangning, deputy director of the hospital's micro-elements testing laboratory.

The hospital has reserved the seventh floor of its inpatient department for the lead-poisoned children and the local health authority has set up an expert panel to work out courses of treatment for sufferers in hospital and at home.

China's environment authorities rule that no battery plant should be built within a radius of 500 meters from residential communities.

Excessive amounts of lead in the blood can damage the digestive, nervous and reproductive systems and cause stomachaches, anemia and convulsions, doctors warn.

Five-year-old Huang Han was one of the first children to be diagnosed with lead poisoning, with his blood lead level hitting 330.9 micrograms per liter.

His father, Huang Dazhai, said the boy had become irritable and hyperactive.

"My wife called on New Year's Eve, telling me to come home immediately and take the child to hospital," said Huang.

Jiang Feng said his daughter was only 14 months old but her blood lead level was 257.

"When she was a baby, she stayed with my in-laws in Changsha, in Hunan Province, and was perfectly healthy. She's been in Gaohe Town for just a few months," he said.

Many parents have expressed worries about the side-effects of the drugs used to diminish lead in the blood, while others say their children are not getting proper treatment.

Xiang Hongfen, a woman from Guizhou Province in the country's southwest, said her 12-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son, both diagnosed with moderate lead poisoning, were not getting treatment at all, while some of their peers with the same symptoms were being treated in hospital.

"It's unfair. The government pays the medical bills only for local children and we as migrants are ignored," she said.

Xiang and her husband moved to Gaohe Town about a year ago and both worked at the Guangfa plant. "We've decided to leave here for the children's sake," she said.