GAOHE TOWNSHIP, Anhui -- A battery plant just a few steps from a densely-populated community in east China's Anhui province was to blame for lead poisoning that hospitalized 28 children, the local government said Thursday.

Borui Battery Co Ltd, which is separated from Xinshan Community in Gaohe town only by a narrow road, produced excessive lead emissions that put local children's health at risk, the Huaining county government said in a press release.

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

In a subsequent government-sponsored checkup on 280 children, more than 200 were diagnosed with high blood lead levels.

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

The hospital has reserved the seventh floor of its in-patient department for the lead poisoned children. Meanwhile, the local health authority has set up an expert panel to work out therapy for the young patients in hospital and at home.

The county's environment protection bureau found after scrutiny that Borui Battery had caused the lead poisoning. It noted that the company had not passed the necessary environmental checks.

China's environmental protection 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 stomach aches, anemia and convulsions.

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

Related readings:  24 children hospitalized for lead poisoning in E China  84 children detected with lead poisoning in province  Lead poisoning sickens 16 children in central China

His father Huang Dazhai said the boy was 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, who, like most small town dwellers of his age, works in a larger city to support the family.

Jiang Feng, who works in the northern city of Tianjin, 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, of the central Hunan province, and was perfectly healthy. She's been in Gaohe town for just a few months," said Jiang.

Many parents worried about the side-effect of the drugs used to diminish lead in the blood, while others feared their children were not getting proper treatment.

Xiang Hongfen, a peasant woman from Guizhou province in the country's southwest, complained her 12-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son, both diagnosed with moderate lead poisoning, were not getting treatment at all, when some of their peers with the same symptoms were hospitalized.

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

She and her husband moved to Gaohe town in February 2010 and both worked at Guangfa Battery Plant.

Though the county government said Wednesday it had shut down both Borui and Guangfa battery plants near Xinshan Community following the incident, Xiang was told to keep working all the same.

"We've decided to leave here for the children's sake," she said.

Battery manufacturing plants are often blamed for lead poisoning in children.

In July last year, four children living near a battery plant in east China's Jiangsu province were found to be suffering from lead poisoning.

A similar incident was reported in South China's Guangdong province in December 2009, where at least 25 children living nearby a battery plant were found to have excessive lead levels in their blood.