Lisbon, Feb 12 (IANS): Portugal's national association of restaurants has launched an initiative to prepare and deliver meals to the frontline health workers currently battling the Covid-19 pandemic in six of the country's major hospitals.

The "Serving Heroes" initiative has been launched by the PRO.VAR association, Xinhua news agency reported.

Under the programme, 16 restaurants in the cities of Braga, Coimbra, Lisbon and Porto plan to serve around 5,000 lunches to the health professionals for 10 working days.

The initiative is financed by Betano Portugal, an online platform for sports bets.

According to research conducted by PRO.VAR involving 621 catering establishments, 61.4 per cent of the country's restaurants lost more than half of their revenue in the beginning of this year in comparison with 2020.

Restaurants across the country have been ordered to shut down, while only their delivery or takeaway services remain operational.

Portugal has so reported 778,369 coronavirus cases and 14,885 deaths.