China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine confirmed that the popular Aqua Beads toys recently recalled in the U.S. contained toxic substances and ordered exports to be stopped immediately. State quality inspectors had sealed the remaining beads at the premises of the Chinese manufacturer, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Five children who swallowed the beads reportedly fell ill in the United States and Australia, where the beads were sold under the name Bindeez. They are colored beads which are coated with a special adhesive. This allows for them to be arranged in a desired shape and then sprayed with water to make them stick permanently.

The move followed the recall of 4.2 million Aqua Beads sets containing the toy beads Thursday in the United States. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission said the Chinese-made Aqua Dots beads contained a butylene glycol adhesive solvent that could produce drowsiness if swallowed.

The harmful substance was found in the adhesive which makes them work. NBC5 reported a case in Twin Lakes, Wisconsin, where a 13-month old girl ate around 40 of the beads and immediately became unresponsive and eventually completely unconscious. Luckily, she vomited the poisonous beads and recovered with treatment.

The butylene glycol adhesive, when ingested, metabolizes into the so-called date rape drug, gamma hydroxy butyrate (GHB). The substance can induce unconsciousness, seizures, drowsiness, coma or even death in high doses.

The toys were manufactured for Australia-based Moose Enterprises in Wangqi Product Factory in Shenzhen, a city just over the border from Hong Kong. The Aqua Dots or Bindeez were actually supposed to have been coated with a nontoxic adhesive, 1,5-pentanediol, which is a chemical commonly used in computer printer ink. It was, however, replaced by the manufacturer with the toxic 1,4-butanediol, which is a few times cheaper.