A 66-year-old Hong Kong man died on Friday after receiving BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine, bringing the total number of fatalities among vaccine recipients to eight.

The man died three days after receiving the BioNTech vaccine, according to the Department of Health. He had a history of diabetes, high blood pressure and hyperlipidemia.

The man was inoculated with the German maker’s jab on Tuesday at Lung Sum Avenue Sports Centre in Sheung Shui, and was found unconscious in a car three days later. He was declared dead after arriving at Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital.

Health authorities said he did not report feeling unwell after receiving the vaccine during the post-jab monitoring period at the center.

The man is the eighth person to die after being vaccinated since the city began its COVID-19 vaccination campaign last month. It is the first case involving the BioNTech vaccine, while seven other fatalities had received the Chinese-manufactured Sinovac shot. An external committee ruled that the seven fatal cases were not caused by the vaccine.

Chinese University of Hong Kong respiratory medicine expert David Hui said an autopsy would need to be conducted to determine the cause of death. But given the man had a history of high blood pressure and hyperlipidemia, which posed high risks for cardiovascular diseases, it was possible the man had died of a heart attack.

Dr. Leung Chi-chiu, another respiratory medicine specialist, echoed Hui’s sentiments that chronically ill patients were more prone to developing cardiovascular diseases. He also added that while it was possible for the body to develop inflammatory responses after getting shots, the response would not be severe enough to lead to blood clots or a stroke.

At least 276,000 people in Hong Kong had received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine as of Thursday. Among them, 200,000 were vaccinated with the Sinovac jab.

The scientific committee on vaccine preventable diseases under the Department of Health said on Thursday that there has not yet been any data to prove that the Sinovac vaccine was effective against coronavirus variants. But data showed the BioNTech jabs had an 85% efficacy against the British variant, and over 90% efficacy against the Brazilian variant.

Committee member professor Benjamin Cowling of the University of Hong Kong’s School of Public Health urged residents to get the BioNTech vaccine, as it was more effective than Sinovac’s at preventing the spread of the virus.

Cowling told Apple Daily that the effective rate for the Sinovac vaccine was only at around 50%, and the rate would be reduced to around 30 to 40% against mutated strains of the virus.

Hong Kong has reported 96 cases of the coronavirus variants so far, 37 of them from Britain, eight from South Africa, five from Brazil and 46 others had not yet been classified.

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