Elaina Redick, the 4-year-old daughter of Dr. Kimberly Redick, a Rincon dentist, and David Redick, died Sunday. The Richmond Hill child’s daycare/preschool at the Savannah Christian Preparatory School closed Monday and today.

Elaina fell ill with nausea early on Saturday morning. She was taken to Memorial University Medical Center on Saturday and passed away early Sunday afternoon. Doctors have not yet determined the cause.

Local health officials also are hesitant to say H1N1 was the cause.

Here’s the link to the letter about this heartbreaking case on the Savannah Christian Preparatory School Web site.

Does this unspeakable loss make you more concerned about the H1N1 threat, even though this is not a confirmed case of the swine flu? Does it make you want to take advantage of the availability of the H1N1 flu mist vaccine at the Chatham County Health Department?

Novel H1N1 flu has claimed the lives of 86 children in the U.S. since the outbreak began in April, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About two-thirds of those deaths have been in children with underlying medical conditions such as muscular dystrophy or cerebral palsy. A typical flu season sees about 50-100 pediatric deaths.

What are you doing to keep your young children healthy during this frightening time? Here’s the link to the CDC page on H1N1 and the seasonal flu.

See readers’ responses on our SouthernMamas Facebook page here.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 at 12:13 pm and is filed under Health/Safety, Parenting News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.