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The family of Vanessa Verdecia Labrada, a three-year-old girl living in Holguín, made a desperate plea on social media to raise funds for a bone marrow transplant in Italy, the only available treatment to save her life.
The father of the little girl explained on Facebook that Vanessa was diagnosed approximately nine months ago with Acute Myeloid Leukemia M5, an aggressive subtype of leukemia. She received treatment at the Pediatric Hospital in Holguín, and the family believed she had entered remission, but last week she was readmitted due to low parameters.
"The doctors immediately performed a bone marrow test, and the disease reappeared," wrote Adam Verdecia, who added that "this type of leukemia has no other treatment aside from a bone marrow transplant."
The man contacted a hospital in Italy that accepted the girl, but the treatment costs thousands of euros, an amount impossible for a Cuban family to gather.
"I had never asked for financial help before, but today I need it to be able to live," wrote the father, who published his phone number -63163447- to receive direct donations.
This is not Vanessa's first public call.
In October 2025, when the girl was two years old, activist Yan Cuba Nayara, who promoted the humanitarian project "Luz del Corazón," and citizen Ernesto Almaguer Díaz rallied the community on Facebook to secure urgent donations of platelets - two daily - while Vanessa remained hospitalized in the same pediatric hospital in Holguín.
Now, Yan Cuba Nayara is making another appeal: "Please, to all the people who at one time or another have donated to the humanitarian project Luz del Corazón, contact Vanessa's dad or mom. We helped this princess once, but now she truly needs all the possible assistance."
Vanessa's case starkly highlights the limitations of the Cuban health system.
Cuba does not perform pediatric bone marrow transplants and is not listed in any international donor registry, forcing families to seek treatment abroad at costs that can range from 65,000 to 160,000 euros.
This drama unfolds in the context of a documented health collapse: the Ministry of Public Health admitted in July 2025 that only 30% of the basic medication supply is covered, and infant mortality escalated to 8.2 deaths per thousand live births, compared to 3.9 in 2018, an increase of almost 110% in seven years.
The William Soler Pediatric Hospital in Havana was reported to be completely overwhelmed in October 2025, facing an overload of emergency cases, staff shortages, and a lack of supplies, a reality that is echoed in pediatric centers across the country.
Vanessa's case is not an isolated one. Since 2022, multiple Cuban families have had to resort to humanitarian visas or international fundraising campaigns to access bone marrow transplants that the Cuban state is unable to provide, and in many cases, the visas have been denied.
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