Dengue Alert

DENGUE has claimed another life in Cebu City, that of a journalist couple’s five-year-old daughter.

Mary Heart Vallena, sixth child of Sun.Star Superbalita news editor Roger Vallena and GMA-7 Balitang Bisdak supervising producer Chelo Vallena, died in a private hospital at 1:58 a.m. yesterday.

“We lost a star in the family. (It’s) so hard to imagine life without her. She was papa’s girl,” Roger said in a text message.

He said Mary Heart was brought to the Chong Hua Hospital on Saturday afternoon.

By Sunday evening, she was already suffering from 3rd grade hemorrhagic fever.

The little girl was the third in the family to get infected with dengue since last month.

Her 14-year-old brother was the first to fall ill.

“It started Aug. 26, a day before my birthday,” said Roger. Then a 10-year-old child was diagnosed with dengue. Mary Heart was the last to fall ill. The Vallena couple have eight children.

Dr. Durinda Macasocol, an epidemiologist with the City Health Department, said Mary Heart was the 25th to die of dengue since January in Cebu City.
The number is still lower than the 39 fatalities for the same period last year.

From January to August this year, 895 dengue cases were recorded in Cebu City compared with last year’s 919 cases for the same period.

The wake for Mary Heart is being held at the Cebu Rolling Hills Memorial Chapel. Her burial is scheduled for Sunday at a cemetery in barangay Talamban, Cebu City.