The Department of Health said as of 4pm today, in the past 24 hours, it received two reports from the Hospital Authority of deaths with suspected serious adverse events with history of COVID-19 vaccination within 14 days.

One of the cases involved a 58-year-old woman who complained of chest pain and shortness of breath on May 7 and attended a hospital for treatment. Hospital examination revealed she had aortic dissection and she passed away this morning.

The woman received a dose of the BioNTech vaccine at a community vaccination centre on May 1 and there was no record that she complained of feeling unwell during observation there.

The other case involved a 61-year-old man who was found collapsed at his workplace on the night of May 7 and was admitted to a hospital. Hospital examination revealed he had ventricular fibrillation and he passed away that night.

The man received a dose of the BioNTech vaccine at a community vaccination centre on May 5 and there was no record that he complained of feeling unwell during observation there.

The department said that it has contacted the authority to obtain further information on the two cases to facilitate a causality assessment.

So far, there is no clinical evidence indicating that the events were caused by the vaccine. The department will pass the cases to the Expert Committee on Clinical Events Assessment Following COVID-19 Immunisation to conduct a causality assessment.

As of May 2, a total of 2,402 reports of adverse events following immunisation were received, which is 0.16% of the doses of COVID-19 vaccines administered in Hong Kong.

A total of 16 death reports with vaccination history within 14 days were received in the same period. The expert committee concluded that four cases had no causal relationship with COVID-19 vaccination, and the rest were preliminarily considered not to be associated with vaccination.