Max Gomez was a bright-eyed 5-year-old, happy to have just started kindergarten, when he developed sniffles and a fever. His mother figured it was only a cold.
Three days later, the Antioch, Tenn., boy was dead, apparently from swine flu. At least 76 American children have died from the new virus, and doctors are urging parents to watch for warning signs that the flu has become life-threatening.
Ruth Gomez said her son developed dangerous symptoms — bluish fingers and extreme fatigue after seeming to get better — just one day before he died. She took him to the doctor, but it was too late.
"We were in shock," Gomez said softly, still trying to wrap her mind around her little boy's Aug. 31 death. "There are so many unanswered questions. What happened?"
It's a question on other parents' minds, too: How can they protect their kids from swine flu until the vaccine is widely available?
Swine flu probably has infected hundreds of thousands of youngsters nationwide, but deaths among children are rare. Health officials are keeping track of children's deaths, but they say it's impossible to count all flu cases. So they don't know what percentage of children's infections are fatal.
Many experts say the H1N1 virus does not appear to be more dangerous than other flu strains, but children have been catching it more easily than seasonal flu.
Last week alone, there were 19 new reports of children who died, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And the 76 swine flu fatalities since April compare with 68 pediatric deaths from seasonal flu since September 2008.
Authorities urge parents to seek immediate help if emergency warning signs develop. In children, these are:
Fast or troubled breathing
Bluish skin color
Lack of thirst
Failure to wake up easily or interact
Irritability to the extent that the child does not want to be held
Improvement of symptoms, then a return to fever and worse cough
Fever with a rash
Parents also should seek medical help if flu symptoms develop in children most vulnerable to flu complications: those younger than 5 or with high-risk conditions, including asthma and other lung problems; cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and other neurological diseases; heart, kidney, or liver problems; and diabetes.
A recent report from the CDC found that one-thirds of pediatric deaths from the new H1N1 virus were in children such as Max, with no known underlying condition that would put them at risk.
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