SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - An elderly woman died after collapsing during a long wait in line with hundreds of others for scarce flu shots at a California supermarket, an official said on Friday.
Marie Franklin, 78, died on Thursday after collapsing in line on Wednesday and hitting her head on a pipe, said Lt. Michael Fisher, police chief of Lafayette, California, a town east of San Francisco.
Franklin had been waiting in unseasonably hot weather in line at a Lafayette Safeway supermarket that had been overwhelmed by the turnout for the shots, Fischer said.
"There was a large crowd of mostly older individuals," Fisher said. "At any given time we had 200 or 300 people waiting to get their shots."
The U.S. flu vaccine supply is stretched thin because of tainted supplies.
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