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A medical worker is preparing to give an AstraZeneca vaccine at a hospital in Seoul’s Jongno District on the morning of Apr. 26. (Yonhap News)

South Korea has seen its first fatality from rare blood clots following inoculation with the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.

The deceased was a man in his 30s who had been inoculated with a leftover AstraZeneca vaccine last month. This is the second case of the rare blood clotting disorder to be reported in Korea.

Korea bars those younger than 30 years of age from being inoculated with the AstraZeneca vaccine. But since both cases of blood clots have occurred in men in their 30s, and since one of them was fatal, the cases appear likely to trigger a debate about the current age limit.

The Korean government’s COVID-19 vaccination task force announced on June 16 that the second patient in the country to be diagnosed with thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, a blood clotting condition characterized by low platelet levels, had died at 2:10 pm that day.

The deceased patient, a man in his early 30s without any known underlying conditions, had received a leftover AstraZeneca vaccine on May 27. On June 5, nine days after being vaccinated, he received treatment for a severe headache and vomiting at a small clinic, but his conditions didn’t improve.

The patient’s condition worsened on June 8, and he was sent to a larger hospital in a state of impaired consciousness. A scan of his brain showed blood clotting, reduced platelet levels, and bleeding in the brain, or cerebral hemorrhage.

The patient was subsequently treated for symptoms in the intensive care unit until being diagnosed with thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome as a side effect of his vaccination on June 15. He died the following day.

The direct cause of death was cerebral hemorrhage.

“While protocol requires that our harm investigation team carry out a final review, our current assumption is that the patient died of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome. We plan to sit down with experts to review what happened between the post-vaccination adverse event and the patient’s death based on the results of our epidemiological survey. We intend to make improvements where necessary,” the vaccination team said.

The first example of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome in South Korea was confirmed on May 31.

That patient was also a man in his early 30s. He was inoculated with the AstraZeneca vaccine in late April because of his work at a facility deemed vulnerable to infection. Following vaccination, he was diagnosed with cerebral venous thrombosis, cerebral hemorrhage, and thrombocytopenia.

The vaccination task force said that as of June 13, around 570,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine had been administered to people in their 30s.

“European countries initially reported [an incidence rate of] 3-4 cases per 1 million inoculations. Since then, some countries have reported a rate of 1-2 cases per 100,000 inoculations. We’ll have to keep an eye on developments in Korea, but for now [the incidence rate] doesn’t seem to be at a high level,” said Park Yeong-jun, head of the task force’s adverse event team.

South Korea currently restricts people below 30 years of age from receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine. That’s based on the calculation that for those in their 20s, the vaccine’s potential side effects may outweigh its benefits.

One of the characteristics of COVID-19 is that the young are much less likely to develop a severe or fatal case of the disease than the elderly.

Does the fact that two people in their 30s have experienced adverse events after receiving the AstraZeneca jab alter the cost-benefit analysis for vaccinating people in their 30s?

“That’s a question that we should probably review with relevant experts in consideration of the number of vaccinations and the occurrence [of side effects]. We’ll make sure to move forward with that alongside [our other work],” said an official with the vaccination task force.

Other countries have been raising age restrictions on AstraZeneca vaccination. Italy recently stopped giving the jab to people below the age of 60 and has approved another vaccine to serve as the second dose for people in that age group who have already received one dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

In May, the UK raised the minimum age for receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine from 30 to 40.

Norway and Denmark even decided not to administer the AstraZeneca vaccine to their citizens.

By Seo Hye-mi, staff reporter

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