The public health institute RIVM has refused to cooperate with efforts to identify the baby found alive in a rubbish container in Amsterdam two years ago, the public prosecution department confirmed on Tuesday.

The RIVM collates information from the heel prick tests which all newborns undergo and which would enable officials to trace her parents. The baby, a girl of several days old, had undergone the test.

The RIVM says it is bound by medical confidentiality and that giving the dna results to the public prosecutor may discourage other young parents from using the national network of baby clinics which carried out the test.

Now the institute has refused to cooperate, officials are comparing the child’s dna with the justice ministry’s dna bank in an effort to find her relatives.