At least three people were taken to hospital after mistakenly eating pods of laundry detergent given away as part of a campaign in Taiwan’s presidential race.

One of the victims said she thought the pods – which contained colourful liquid – were sweets, despite instructions written on a bag that each can wash up to 8kg of clothes.

The Nationalist Party has said they will clarify to the public that these pods are “laundry balls, not candies”.

Among the trio taken for treatment were an 80-year-old man and an 86-year-old woman, both of whom were discharged after having their stomachs flushed, according to SET iNews.

Campaigns for the presidency are in their final stretch, with the country heading to the polls on Saturday amid rising tensions with China, who lay claim to the island nation’s territory.

Nationalist Party candidate Hou Yu-ih and his team took to handing out the pods door-to-door as part of late efforts to secure more votes.

The pods came in partly clear packaging with photos of Mr Hou and his running mate and “vote for no. 3” – his place on the ballot – also written on the bag.

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About 460,000 pods were handed out in the Nationalist campaign and Hung Jung-chang, head of the central office, apologised for the incident.

“In the next wave of house-to-house visits, we will not distribute this kind of campaign material,” Mr Hung said.

“We will also stress to our villagers through our grassroots organisations that they are laundry balls, not candies.”

Island-wide alert after Chinese launch

Mr Hou is running against William Lai of the governing Democratic Progressive Party and Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan People’s Party in Saturday’s election.

The vote is being closely watched in both China and the US, with Beijing’s territorial claims opposed by Washington, which sells weapons for the island to defend against any attack.

On Tuesday, Taiwan’s government sent out an island-wide alert warning a Chinese satellite had flown over southern airspace.

Read more:
China building airstrip on disputed island, satellite images suggest
Taiwan claims China getting ready to ‘launch a war’

The “presidential alert” from Taiwan’s defence ministry was sent at about 3pm local time, describing the projectile as a “satellite” in Chinese and a “missile” in English.

Taiwan’s defence ministry later blamed “negligence” for the mistaken reference to a missile and said the rocket had passed at high altitude over Taiwan airspace.

The alert was sent at around the same time Chinese state media confirmed the launch of a science satellite.

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