Warning not to link blood clots with Covid vaccines

The deaths of two NSW men being investigated by the TGA are ‘highly unlikely’ to be linked to the AstraZeneca vaccines they received.

Therapeutic Goods Administration head John Skerritt. Picture: Gary Ramage

The deaths of two NSW men being investigated by the Therapeutic Goods Administration are “highly unlikely” to be linked to the AstraZeneca vaccines they received, despite both suffering from blood-clotting disorders.

TGA head John Skerritt sought to assure people that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine – meant to be the “workhorse” of the national rollout – far outweighed the risks for those aged over 50 after reports of the men’s deaths triggered renewed hesitancy.

Senior government sources told The Australian that while investigations continued, there were no early signs of the deaths being caused by the vaccination and any link was “highly unlikely”.

The sources said there was ­increasing concern within government that unrelated events were being prematurely reported, after national cabinet decided Pfizer would become the preferred vaccine for under-50s because of an extremely rare blood clot disorder associated with the AstraZeneca jab.

“The current evidence does not suggest a likely association,” Mr Skerritt said. “We believe the two individuals so mentioned did have the AstraZeneca, but we are still doing investigations with them. Unless we decide to live in a country that will never open our borders, unless we decide to never return to our normal activities of daily living, the vaccine still remains, along with other measures, the best way out of this pandemic.”

While the number of people getting blood clots after receiving AstraZeneca is about one in 100,000 or 200,000, the number of daily administered COVID doses continues to increase.

There were 82,741 vaccines received on Wednesday, taking the national total to more than 2.1 million.

A 55-year-old Tamworth man reportedly died last week eight days after getting his first AstraZeneca jab. A member of his family told local paper The Northern Daily Leader the otherwise fit and healthy man suffered a “massive” blood clot, but they were not attributing the death to the vaccine.

A second man in his 70s died in Sydney after being vaccinated.

With the rollout slowed down by international supply issues and the medical advice on blood clots and the AstraZeneca vaccine, the government is concerned that false or inaccurate reports about deaths could have a significant ­impact on vaccine hesitancy.

The TGA said it was aware of the men’s deaths but the reporting of an “adverse event” post-vaccination did not mean they were caused by the vaccines.

It could still take several days to know the cause of their deaths.

Dr Skerritt pointed out that about 3000 Australians died each week and there were an average of 50 blood clot events each day, a third of which were fatal. Almost none of them had any relationship to vaccination.

While the delayed vaccine rollout is beginning to speed up, new analysis by NAB economists shows the entire adult population would not have received their second jab until around the middle of 2023. The findings are based on the average daily vaccination rate of 45,150 over the past week, NAB economist Taylor Nugent said.

Deutsche Bank suggested it would be slightly more than 250 days before the country achieved “population immunity”.