SARS outbreak: Hong Kong's Special Olympics sports director, Mr Mark Chiu, said yesterday he was disappointed to hear of the decision of Clonmel Council to cancel the invitation to host his team.
"We were looking forward to it," he said in a telephone interview. "In Hong Kong the situation is getting better. We still want to go if we can."
So far he had said he received no message from Ireland or the general organising council. "It is up to them to decide but they should keep us informed," he said. "We know that SARS is a very frightening thing, but we still hope to participate ithe games."
Meanwhile, in Beijing, Liang Wannian, deputy director general of the city's Municipal Health Bureau, told a news conference the number of new cases may be slowing down despite fresh statistics reporting 96 cases in the capital and 176 across the country.
Liang said the SARS epidemic "was in a stable period with the upward trend contained", but admitted it was still hard to predict the infection rate would fall.
The World Health Organisation is now reporting a cumulative total of 5,865 probable SARS cases with 391 deaths.
"The next few months will prove crucial in the attempt to contain SARS worldwide, which now greatly depends on whether the disease can be controlled in China," a WHO spokesman said yesterday.
In Hong Kong, the SARS virus killed eight more people and infected another 11, a hospital authority spokesman said yesterday.
Doctors there said they had discovered traces of the virus in the stool and urine of patients who had been infected but were later thought to be free of SARS.
Taiwan reported nine new cases of SARS, bringing the island's infections to 98. The death toll from the disease remains at three.