Taiwan, the only country being excluded from the World Special Olympic Games because of the risk of SARS, is expected to furnish proposals to the Department of Health today which could allow its athletes attend the Games.
The authorities in Taiwan contacted the Department earlier this week indicating their willingness to take whatever steps were necessary, if they were allowed travel, to minimise the risk of bringing the virus with them.
A Department source confirmed last night it wrote to the authorities in Taiwan yesterday setting out the recommendations of the State's SARS expert group, which ruled that athletes on the World Health Organisation's list of SARS-affected regions could not travel to the Games.
Last weekend, however, the authorities in Hong Kong were allowed circumvent this rule by giving an undertaking to the Department that its team would travel to a SARS-free area of China and spend 10 days - equivalent to the incubation period for the virus - there and have health checks before travelling on to Dublin.
The 70-strong Taiwan delegation has been informed of this and it is expected it will make proposals today similar to those put forward on behalf of the Hong Kong team. If it does, it's likely that, after weeks of controversy, no country will actually be excluded from the Games. At this point only athletes from Taiwan as well as some regions of China and the Toronto area of Canada are excluded.
Meanwhile, the SARS expert group meets again today and any proposals put forward by Taiwan are likely to be considered by it.
Taiwan recorded six of the nine new SARS cases reported to the WHO yesterday. The others were in the US, Hong Kong and Brazil.