The government said it will from Monday invite medical teams to visit nursing homes at least once a week to help vaccinate elderly and disabled people against Covid-19, to boost the vaccination rate.

Officials hope to increase the inoculation rate of the second dose to over 90 percent within next month, and hopefully by the end of September, some 50 percent of care home residents will be triple-jabbed.

At the moment, 87 percent and 39 percent of care home residents have received two and three doses of the vaccine.

Welfare secretary Chris Sun and Health secretary Lo Chung-mau briefed healthcare organisations and care home operators on the outreach plan on Friday evening.

Sun said there is a need to speed up vaccination in care homes in light of the rise in cases in such facilities and in the community.

The scheme will run for six weeks and a special allowance will be provided to the firms involved to cover additional costs.