Tokyo — Short-term exposure to food contaminated by radiation from Japan’s damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant poses no immediate health risk, a spokesman for the World Health Organization said Monday.

The United Nations organization initially said the food safety situation was ‘more serious’ than originally thought. But spokesman Peter Cordingley said Monday that the assessment was based not on the levels of contamination but on the fact that radioactivity was found in food beyond the 12.4-mile (30-kilometer) evacuation zone.

‘It’s new and something we’re watching,’ Cordingley said.

On Monday, authorities in the village of Iitake urged residents to avoid drinking tap water that tests showed contained more than three times the maximum standard of radioactive iodine. The day before, a government ban on the sale of raw milk from Fukushima Prefecture and spinach from neighboring Ibaraki Prefecture became public.

Japanese officials reported levels of radioactive iodine in milk from four locations in Fukushima that ranged from about 20% over the acceptable limit to more than 17 times that limit. Testing at one location also found levels of cesium about 5% over the acceptable limit, the health ministry reported Sunday.

In Ibaraki, a major center of vegetable production, tests at 10 locations found iodine levels in […]