South Korean health authorities said Wednesday that the rollout of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine will continue despite major European countries' decision to pause vaccinations to investigate reported side effects.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said in a press release that there is no evidence suggesting correlation between vaccines manufactured by British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca and Oxford University and reports of blood clots in some recipients.

A total of some 20 European countries, including Germany, France and Italy, have suspended the use of AstraZeneca's vaccine pending the outcome of investigations into blood clots in people who had received it.

International regulators, however, have said there is no proven evidence that the shots are related to the blood clots. The World Health Organization said the risk of hospitalization and death outweigh the risks of possible side effects.

Europe's medicines watchdog, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), is also scheduled to hold a meeting Thursday (local time) to review the issue and announce the result.

The KDCA, meanwhile, said that one suspected case of death from blood clots after receiving an AstraZeneca vaccine injection is highly likely to be caused by other underlying diseases.

One person who died within days of receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine is confirmed to have had blood clots, according to the KDCA. The country has reported 16 deaths after the administration of AstraZeneca products, with the authorities tentatively concluding that there is no causal relation.

The reported case involves a woman in her 60s, who had previously been admitted to a long-term care facility.

The KDCA said the death was highly likely to be caused by pneumonia and acute cardiac arrest, emphasizing there is no causal relation with the AstraZeneca vaccine

"She had underlying diseases for a long period of time," Kim Joong-kon, a KDCA official, told a press conference, adding that an autopsy is currently under way.

The KDCA also said the frequency at which blood clots can occur naturally among seniors is high, with more than 500 people experiencing them per 100,000.

Earlier, South Korea decided to expand the use of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine to people aged 65 and older to ramp up the nationwide vaccination campaign as new overseas studies showed its effectiveness.

A total of 570,000 million people in the country have already been administered with the product.

On Wednesday, the country reported 469 more cases of the new coronavirus, bringing the total caseload to 96,849, the KDCA said. (Yonhap)