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Here's another suspect California death:

DEATH OF SAN MARCOS GIRL INVESTIGATED AS PROBABLE FLU CASE

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(12-11-2003) - A 13-year-old San Marcos girl probably died from complications due to influenza, it was reported Thursday.

Lidia Vigil, an eighth-grader at Woodland Park Middle School, woke up early Friday complaining of earache and chest pains, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.

The girl's father took Lidia to a clinic in Tijuana on Monday, where she got a shot of penicillin.

On Tuesday, just hours after the girl reassured her parents that she would get better, an ambulance took her to Palomar Medical Center in Escondido, where she died.

The Medical Examiner's Office is investigating whether the flu virus caused her death. Investigators with the office told the Union-Tribune that Palomar doctors strongly suspected that diagnosis. The death comes as more and more people with flu-like symptoms are turning up at local emergency rooms.

Eighteen percent of the patients who came through the surveyed departments reported flu-like symptoms the week of Nov. 29 to Dec. 6. That was up from 11 percent from the week before, according to the county Health and Human Services Agency.

During that same week, 85 cases of the flu were documented countywide, bringing the seasonal total to 126, according to the HHSA.

A little bottle of hand sanitizer is a good thing to have on the desk, or to carry.

Good advice. I keep a small spray bottle of windex and a box of Kleenex on my desk. I wipe the keyboard and mouse before using the computer (esp. important for shared computers). I spray it on my hands after getting up and using the men's room, or just touching doorknobs in the office. I don't care if anybody thinks I'm a hypochondriac.

After living for six decades, I don't want to be taken out by something as common as the flu!