IIRC, it's only been since 2009 that flu has emerged as the number one danger connected to death by pneumonia but the fact of the matter is there is a long list of pneumonia causes including STD's, specifically chlamydia.
2009, if that year is correct, marks the pharma industry's push to inoculate and inoculation does provide a pathway of many laboratory life forms capable of squeezing through the opening at the end of that needle.
The subject of all the pity generated by the designing press should have stayed in mexico. As eastexsteve mentions, The only way to not get the flu is to not ingest the virus into your system.
Her lifestyle as the article indicates opened her to many opportunities of life destroying pneumonia, not just the flu. To me, she's just another example of culture clash. Except in her case, she's the one that paid dearly.
I do understand that there are many other causes of pneumonia. Simply put, flu can turn into pneumonia in both healthy people and those with compromised health; although it is much more common to “turn into” pneumonia in the elderly, those with asthma or other breathing issues, COPD, etc.
Whatever her situation, unless there is more at the link, other factors are unknown at this point.
I don’t think that the flu/pneumonia connection is new at all; it was connected back in the so-called Spanish flu, too.
From my arduous reading about flus on a dedicated flu forum which started at the middle or latter part of 2006, the CDC list of flu deaths is totally exaggerated, I mean way, way off, and gotten by figuring out “extra” deaths during flu season that are not attributable to obviously something else. IMHO it is to scare people into getting flu vaxes. Noteworthy is that the head of the CDC at that time (Nancy something or other) retired as head a couple of years later to work at one of the big pharmaceutical companies in their vax division. Revolving door....