Undefined symbol __pure_virtual when importing MySQLdb

[antonyliu2002 at yahoo.com]

I downloaded MySQL-python-1.2.1 from SourceForge and installed it on a
Mandrake system (Mandrake Linux 9.2 3.3.1-2mdk on linux2).

The installation was successful.  The gcc version is 3.3.

My Python version is 2.4.2.  When I import MySQLdb, I get an error
which says that __pure_virtual is an undefined symbol.

Look:

>>> import MySQLdb
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
  File "/usr/local/python2.4/site-packages/MySQLdb/__init__.py", line
19, in ?
    import _mysql
ImportError: /usr/local/python2.4/site-packages/_mysql.so: undefined
symbol: __pure_virtual

By the way, mysql (5.0.27-standard)is running OK on the Mandrake
system. Look:

[antonyliu at myhost antonyliu]$ mysql -u root -p
Enter password:
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 13 to server version: 5.0.27-standard

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer.

mysql>

I have googled hard, and did see someone asking the same question, but
haven't found a good solution to this problem.  Could anyone give me a
hint?  Thanks a lot!