The Government will launch a website (www.covidvaccine.gov.hk/hv/) and an enquiry hotline (5688 5234) for the Home Vaccination Service at 9am on April 19 (Tuesday) for unvaccinated elderly persons aged 70 or above and persons with impaired mobility due to illness or physical disability to register for door-to-door Sinovac vaccination service via the website or by phone.
      
     The Secretary for the Civil Service, Mr Patrick Nip, said today (April 15), "Our goal is to launch the Home Vaccination Service across Hong Kong on April 26 to protect the elderly and reduce their risk of serious illness and death from infection.
      
     "We welcome members of the public to register by phone or online for their unvaccinated family members and friends, who are elderly or with impaired mobility. After collecting their registration information and making arrangements on the deployment of medical teams, we will roll out the service by districts, with four to five districts being served each week, so as to ensure that all eligible service recipients can obtain the service in a timely manner."
      
     Starting from April 19, the Home Vaccination Service enquiry hotline (5688 5234) will operate from 9am to 8pm daily. After provision of first dose of vaccination to eligible persons, there will be door-to-door administration of the second dose of the Sinovac vaccine to them 28 days later.
      
     Before vaccination, the medical staff will conduct a simple assessment on the eligible persons, and registrants may make enquiry with medical staff too. As there are various technical issues involving BioNTech vaccine such as dilution procedure and transportation arrangement, only door-to-door Sinovac vaccination is available at the moment.
      
     In addition, during "restriction-testing declaration" operations in April and May, the Government would collect registration information of eligible elderly persons or persons with impaired mobility in the buildings concerned to arrange vaccination by medical staff under the territory-wide Home Vaccination Service to be launched later.
      
     To further promote COVID-19 vaccination, the Social Welfare Department (SWD), the Department of Health (DH) and the Hospital Authority (HA) will proactively approach their service users, and assist those in need to register for vaccination.
      
     The SWD has collated the information of nearly 200 000 persons, who are receiving relevant allowances and are yet to get vaccinated. It will remind them to register for vaccination by sending them a promotional leaflet on Home Vaccination Service by mail. The call centre for the service has been commissioned to call these persons to provide assistance to those in need to register for the service.
      
     The nursing and allied health professionals of 18 Elderly Health Centres (EHCs) under the DH will give telephone calls to EHC members who are yet to receive their first COVID-19 vaccine dose to encourage them to receive vaccination and eliminate their misunderstanding and hesitation of vaccination.
      
     The Patient Support Call Centre of the HA will approach elderly patients of general out-patient clinics (GOPCs) who are yet to receive COVID-19 vaccination to explain to them the importance of getting vaccinated. It will arrange the elderly persons to receive vaccination at GOPCs or other vaccination venue according to their needs.
      
     For members of the public who have elderly family members and that they can bring the elderly to Community Vaccination Centres, Mobile Vaccination Stations, Hospital COVID-19 Vaccination Stations, or clinics, etc, they are advised to make reservations or collect same-day tickets for vaccination of the elderly immediately so that they can receive the protection conferred by the vaccine as early as possible.
      
     The designated website for the COVID-19 Vaccination Programme (www.covidvaccine.gov.hk/en/programme) provides the latest information including details on vaccination venues, reservation and enquiry hotlines.

Ends/Friday, April 15, 2022
Issued at HKT 12:05

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