China Central Television (CCTV) on Monday accused Dumex Baby Food Co of bribing doctors and nurses at hospitals in seven provinces in China to feed newborn babies with its products.

The report said that Dumex, an infant formula company owned by French food group Danone SA, paid around 500,000 yuan ($817,000) in April to medical staff members in hospitals in seven provinces and municipalities including Beijing and North China's Hebei Province.

The report followed another CCTV report on September 16, which claimed the company had bribed medical staff at a hospital in Tianjin.

Dumex said in a statement sent to the Global Times Monday that it has started an investigation into the allegations and "related results are expected to be released before October 1."

To regulate the industry, the central government banned the promotion of milk powder by hospitals in 1995.

"This will seriously damage Dumex's reputation in China," Song Liang, an industry analyst with the Distribution Productivity Promotion Center of China Commerce, told the Global Times Monday.

Distributors were already hesitant about purchasing Dumex goods following another problem last month with potentially contaminated whey protein in the company's products, he said.

Bribing medical staff to promote products has been a common practice for many milk powder companies in China in recent years, Zhang Yongjian, executive director of the Research Center for the Development and Regulation of the Food and Drug Industry at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times Monday.

"Stricter execution of the law is urgently needed, and more moves by the regulator are necessary," Zhang noted.