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Matt Woodley

02 Sep 2021
News

Two more AstraZeneca-linked deaths in past week: TGA

Matt Woodley

2/09/2021 4:55:22 PM

The latest fatalities mean Australia has now recorded nine deaths linked to the vaccine, compared to more than 1000 COVID deaths.

AstraZeneca vials
Fewer than one in a million AstraZeneca doses have led to deaths in Australia. (Image: AAP)

The two AstraZeneca-linked deaths were a 59-year-old Queensland woman who had confirmed thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS), and a 54-year-old man from New South Wales with probable TTS.
 
Both died following their first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
 
According to the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s (TGA) COVID-19 vaccine weekly safety report, more than 9.6 million AstraZeneca doses had been administered in Australia up until 29 August, of which 125 have led to probable or confirmed cases of TTS (1.3 per 100,000).
 
Fewer than one in a million doses have led to deaths in Australia.
 
Meanwhile, at the time of publication on 2 September, 1012 people had died from COVID in Australia from 56,212 confirmed cases (1.8 per 100).
 
So far in Australia, every TTS case has occurred after a first dose of the vaccine. The TGA reports that women in younger age groups seem to be ‘slightly more likely’ to develop clots in unusual locations, such as the brain or abdomen, which have more serious outcomes.
 
Six of the eight TTS deaths have been in women, while the AstraZeneca death linked to immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) was also female.
 
No deaths have been attributed to the Pfizer vaccine in Australia, but a person recently died in New Zealand as a result of myocarditis that the country’s COVID-19 Vaccine Independent Safety Monitoring Board said was probably linked to the vaccine.
 
There have been 293 reports of suspected myocarditis/pericarditis from the around 9.4 million doses administered in Australia up to 29 August. Nine of these reports were in children – eight boys and one girl, all aged 16 or 17 years old. 
 
The TGA states that data from the US indicates myocarditis/pericarditis occurs at a rate of 10 cases per million first doses and 67 cases per million second doses among children aged 12–17.
 
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AstraZeneca blood clots COVID-19 myocarditis Pfizer TGA TTS

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Dr Virginia Lee Reid   3/09/2021 7:27:10 AM

Thanks fro the great up to date information and summary for Australia Matt.
What I would like to make this more helpful both to understand for myself and for discussing with patients would be a bit of a breakdown of the deaths from COVID age and disability wise and also those from vaccines.
Seems like AZ deaths are happening in relatively young healthy , people?
Do we know if the adolescents myocarditis/ pericarditis is likely to have long term consequences? Thanks

Dr Brett James Curr   3/09/2021 7:41:00 AM

Its important to distinguish between confirmed deaths, reported deaths, and actual deaths. If this was a drug trial, every death (and side effect) that occurred during the trial period would be recorded, tallied and then assessed at the end of the trial period. At the moment we have a voluntary reporting system. There was over 405 reported deaths to the TGA 2 months ago. That number has now dropped to 183 without any transparency or reason given. In my region I'm aware of 2 deaths within 2 weeks of vaccination, 2 ICU admissions for heart failure within 10 days of vaccination. None of these were reported by the treating doctors.
There is currently 13627 deaths reported on the VAERS database in the USA

Dr Annabel Kain   3/09/2021 8:19:51 AM

Hi Brett, it's not actually a voluntary reporting system. All these cases are notifiable under the Public Health Act https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/covid-19/vaccine/Pages/adverse-event-reporting-guidelines.aspx. In which case all those treating doctors should be reporting any unexpected event following vaccination. I'm not sure what the penalty is for not doing so

Dr Joel Wenitong   4/09/2021 12:07:33 AM

I agree Brett: total death related reports for both covid vax= 455
https://www.tga.gov.au/overview-how-tga-manages-medicine-adverse-event-reports
Overview of how TGA manages medicine adverse event reports
1 September 2021
The TGA receives adverse event reports from consumers, health professionals and members of the therapeutic goods industry. Once the TGA has received an adverse event report about a medicine, it is:

given a case number
entered into the internal TGA database
acknowledged
reviewed and coded by the TGA with the relevant terms from the Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities (MedDRA)
relevant information copied from the internal TGA database to the publically accessible Database of Adverse Event Notifications - medicines after a 14 day lag for new cases.
The majority of reports are submitted voluntarily. However, medicine sponsors are required under the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989 to report serious adverse events suspected of being related to one of their products.

Dr Abu Naser Md Faizal Kabir   4/09/2021 3:27:31 AM

Hi Brett,
I am treating a few hundred NH residents- noted their exiting condition deteriorating faster than before?
(maybe social/?depression/?dementia worsened-due to locked down not seeing much their loved one!!)
Not reviving from any illness as they did before, is there any study going on for the elderly group of people over 80 years?
Almost all of them have been vaccinated with Pfizer.