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Australia has administered more than 3.6 million doses of AstraZeneca so far.Credit:Joe Armao

Chief Medical Officer Professor Paul Kelly said cases of the syndrome,known asthrombosis with thrombocytopenia (TTS),remained rare.

“We’ve had 3.6 million doses of this vaccine[and] two tragic deaths but,other than that,mostly this has worked well and continues to work well and with great safety,” he said on Thursday afternoon.

“This remains an extremely rare event to get these serious clots but when they happen,as we’ve seen in this case,it can have tragic circumstances so my heart certainly goes out to the family and to all the friends and colleagues of this particular person.”

AstraZeneca released a statement about the woman’s death.

“We are sad to hear of the passing of a woman who recently receivedCovid-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca,and our thoughts are with her family and friends,” the statement said.

“Patient safety remains AstraZeneca’s highest priority,and we continue to work closely with the TGA and other regulators around the world as they investigate these very rare cases.”

Seven other cases of the clotting syndrome were detected over the past week and the Therapeutic Goods Administration has begun categorising them as either “tier one” serious cases or “tier two” milder instances.

Since the beginning of the vaccine rollout,the regulator has detected 15 serious confirmed or likely cases,and 33 less serious events.

The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation had looked at the latest instances,Professor Kelly said,and determined its existing advice stood.

“Our expert group on immunisation has re-looked at that extra information,made that risk-benefit analysis as they did some weeks ago now in relation to AstraZeneca[and] have confirmed that for people over 50 that should be the vaccine of choice,” he said.

“These events remain of concern and we are looking at them very closely,we learn from each of these and including this unfortunate event in NSW.”

Professor Kelly said Australia was one of the best countries in the world at detecting particularly mild cases of the clotting syndrome and treatment had improved since it was first discovered.

“We are getting very good at diagnosing and treating correctly this particular event,but in this particular case that was not successful,” he said. “We will continue to learn from these unfortunate circumstances and we’ll tie that into our advice to all practitioners.”

Across the country,42 per cent of adults over the age of 50 and more than 60 per cent of people over 70 have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine,with more than 5.48 million doses administered so far.

Professor Kelly said there was a much lower risk of the clotting events the older people were and there was “a definite cut point at around the age of 50”.

He said he understood the news was concerning,particularly for the family of the woman who died,but the country’s health experts made their decisions based on a risk-benefit equation.

“At the moment,the AstraZeneca is a really important element of our vaccine rollout but nothing is compulsory,” he said. “Individuals who have a concern about any medical procedure,but including and in particular the COVID vaccine at this time,should talk to their own GP about those concerns.”

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