Taipei, May 29 (CNA) Barring any cases of swine flu spread within the country, Taiwan is set to lower its flu alert from the third level of yellow to the second level Saturday after withstanding a mild rise in the number of imported cases in the past 10 days.

Shih Wen-yi, a spokesman for the Central Epidemics Command Center, said that among the 11 confirmed cases, only the 19-year-old woman who was confirmed as having the influenza A (H1N1) strain Friday will still need to be quarantined as of Saturday.

Also, only one of the 11 cases has been transmitted domestically, but Shih said his office is still keeping a close eye on a bus driver, who started coughing after coming into contact with the 19-year-old woman.

Should the bus driver be found not to have the H1N1 flu, the nationwide alert will be downgraded Saturday, Shih said.

Taiwan’s health authorities also decided Friday to relax measures it is taking against the new flu in light of the lower-than-expected toxicity of the virus which causes it.

“To control the disease, it is sufficient to administer medicine only after people who have been exposed to the virus have developed flu symptoms.” Shih said.

He also said that the Centers for Disease Control is ready to order 2.5 million doses of swine flu vaccine from abroad on June 1 but is not sure it can purchase that many doses of vaccine because of tight supplies.

Taiwan is expected to need 10 million doses of the vaccine this year, with the other 7.5 million slated to be produced by a local biotechnology firm with the assistance of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

In a related development Friday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued yellow travel alerts for Uruguay, the Dominican Republic, Slovakia, Venezuela, Paraguay, and Bolivia.

It brought the number of countries under yellow alert to 43, in addition to Hong Kong and China.

The yellow alert is the lowest of three warning levels and simply urges travelers to take note of the situation in the target country.

Mexico is the only country for which an orange alert is being issued. The orange alert, the middle of the three warning levels, suggests that people postpone travel to the country in question.

As of 2 p.m. Friday, the swine flu has sickened more than 15,500 people in 53 countries around the world and left 99 people dead since breaking out in Mexico in mid-April. (By Maubo Chang)