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Dona Ana County Child May Have Died From H1N1
photo at link

An 8-year-old Las Cruces girl who died suddenly Saturday could be the first child to be killed by H1N1 influenza in Doña Ana County, according to her family.

The Office of the Medical Investigator said Tuesday afternoon they did not yet have a cause of death for Savannah Lynn McCann, but her parents said they were contacted Monday with the news that an autopsy had concluded her death was caused by the flu mutation.

Savannah McCann came home from Desert Hills Elementary the morning of Jan. 18 after vomiting, and had spent the rest of the week resting, with an occasional cough and fever, under her family's and doctor's care.

It was about 10 minutes after her father got home from work Saturday that the third-grader suddenly said she was having trouble breathing. "We called 911," her father, Brent McCann said Tuesday. "Her breathing got more and more shallow."

Just 15 minutes after her first complaint, she had died.

"She took her last breath as the EMTs walked in," said her mother, Melanie McCann.

The little girl was taken to MountainView Regional Medical Center and given heavy doses of epinephrine, but the efforts failed to revive her. Doctors said the influenza mutation appeared to have suddenly attacked Savannah's liver, kidneys and brain, her mother said.

"She had no other health issues, none, that's how absolutely awful that virus is," Melanie McCann said. "They don't know whether the strain she had would have responded to (the vaccine)."

"The pediatrician in the hospital said they never would have said, from the warning signs, that they would have asked for her to come in," Brent McCann said. "Ten minutes after I got home. It happened that fast."

The family, including 5-and-a-half-year-old Tyler and 2-and-a-half-year old-Brody, has been placed on preventative doses of Tamiflu, and their house is being thoroughly treated with ozone, to kill the H1N1 virus. But now, Savannah's parents - who say they never let Savannah or Tyler, in kindergarten, be around other children when they had a potentially contagious illness - are wondering where else the virus has gone, and are frustrated at the possibilities.

"She got it somewhere," Melanie McCann said. "I did my job, as a parent, trying to keep her from getting sick. We kept her home." "Somebody sent their kid in sick," Brent McCann said. "Other teachers said they've had five or six (children) out of class at a time." Las Cruces Public Schools spokesman Mike Cook said the district had not yet received a final report on the cause of Savannah's death. Department of Health spokesman Chris Minnick said Tuesday morning his office was still testing results to be finalized from labs handling the death, and can't yet confirm that Savannah's death was due to H1N1.

"H1N1 is, obviously, still out there," Minnick said.

The last H1N1-caused death in New Mexico was almost a year ago, when a 3-year-old Otero County boy died from a complication from the illness in early February.

RoRo - FTs

http://www.kfoxtv.com/news/26613254/detail.html?

Family Speaks Out After Daughter Dies Fighting The Flu

http://www.health.state.nm.us/flu/docum ... 11.Wk5.pdf


New Mexico Dept of Health - report for week ending 2/5/11 - week 5

http://www.kvia.com/news/27028632/detail.html

New Mexico Dept. Of Health Reports 12-Flu-Related Deaths This Flu Season

Secretary Designate of Health Catherine Torres, MD, said today that there have been 12 influenza-related deaths so far this flu season and is encouraging all New Mexicans to get vaccinated against the disease.

The deaths occurred in Bernalillo, Chaves, Dona Ana, Eddy, Luna, Taos and Valencia Counties. Eleven of the deaths occurred among adults aged 22 to 54 years and one death was a child.

The CDC has not released any 2011 H1N1 sequences from New Mexico.

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Commentary

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/04071 ... el_US.html

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confirmed as flu with rapid test ... if the NM Dept of Health ruled out h1n1, then why didn't they announce what kind of flu Savannah actually had?


8-Year-Old Girl's Sudden Death Not H1N1
NM Department of Health definitively ruled out H1N1 strain of flu as Savannah McCann's possible cause of death
By ABC-7 Reporter Jill Galus
POSTED: 8:07 pm MST January 26, 2011

LAS CRUCES, New Mexico -- The H1N1 strain of flu did not kill 8-year-old Savannah McCann, according to the New Mexico Department of Heath. While the family awaits the official cause of death from the medical examiner, McCann’s parents said, whatever virus rapidly attacked Savannah, they never expected it to kill their seemingly healthy little girl.

"I am devastated and heartbroken,” Melanie McCann, Savannah’s mother, said. “I know that nothing's going to bring her back, so I want to just embrace everything lovely about her and hold onto that."

Melanie said she was holding Savannah in her arms Saturday morning when she suddenly died after watching a movie in bed.

"She sat up and said, "I can't breathe, I need the inhaler, I can't breathe,’” Melanie said. "She actually said, 'I feel like I'm dying.’ It just got more and more shallow as the seconds went on. I believe that she took her last breath at that point."

The week prior, the third grader was sent home from school at Desert Hills Elementary.

"She had cold or flu-like symptoms but it was not to the point where I was alarmed,” Melanie said.

The blonde-haired, blue-eyed little girl even sang and recorded a happy birthday wish with her younger brothers for their Uncle Brian just days before Savannah died, Melanie said. She was playing, watching movies, and doing things she normally did at home, Melanie said.

“I know my children, and I know when they were sick, and I've taken them to doctors before when I thought it was necessary, and it just wasn't that situation," Melanie said. “I think she is the tragic case.”

After Savannah died, a rapid test was conducted that proved she had influenza, but there is no indication from lab results to reveal what strain of influenza it was, Chris Minnick, spokesperson for the New Mexico Dept. of Health, said.

"Nobody should blame the family for this unfortunate situation,” Minnick said. “The flu can be, as we know and if that ends up being the cause of death, can be a deadly virus and it kills 35,000 people every year."

Savannah’s death is a horrific reality check for all parents, warning them about severe complications that could evolve from simple flu-like symptoms, Melanie said.

"I don’t know if ever in my life I will know why this happened, but my family and I believe that she was called for something else; she was called for a greater job,” Melanie said. “She'll always be our angel."

Savannah’s visitation is Friday from 6 to 8 p.m. at the First Assembly of God in Las Cruces, followed by a memorial service Saturday at noon.

This is just nonsense. Subtyping the novel H1n1 has been difficult. The agency is just hand waving.

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http://www.health.state.nm.us/h1n1/news ... ldMale.pdf

Here's a NM Dept of Health Press Release on two NM pediatric deaths - one in November and one 3-yr old boy in January.

Since Savannah tested positive for flu, what category did they put her in, if not h1n1?

I suppose just Influenza A, not subtyped.

Yes. Pennsylvania had a large number of unsubtypable, but recently the number of H1N1 spiked higher, which I suspect is more testing related than a dramatic increase in cases (it went from 93 to 1603 in Allegheny county and a similar jump in Philadelphia).
In Chihuahua there were major problems in testing, which is due to technical problems. Once the new sub-clade was identified, new probes could be used to detect it more easily.

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