Bone marrow donor found for Victoria Esperanza, the little girl from Malaga with leukaemia
The six-year-old will undergo treatment at the Virgen del Rocío hospital in Seville in December
The mother of a six-year-old girl from Malaga with leukaemia has told SUR that a bone marrow donor has come forward. María del Mar Fernández confirmed to SUR on Wednesday 12 November that doctors from the oncohaematology service at the Virgen del Rocío hospital in Seville called her with the news.
Victoria Esperanza Martín Fernández beat leukaemia on one occasion, but relapsed in June 2025. The chemotherapy was not working as it should, so María del Mar launched an appeal for a donor via social media, which went viral thanks to the unanimous support of Malaga's Holy Week brotherhoods and sisterhoods.
"The donation will take place in December. We don't know exactly yet, but we are very happy, we have won the lottery. She is overjoyed, she can't stop singing: 'I have a donor, I have a donor," explained the girl's mother, visibly moved. The family is from Malaga but lives in Seville.
"Victoria Esperanza is overjoyed, she keeps chanting: 'I have a donor, I have a donor," says her mother
"The donor will undergo a procedure called apheresis. During this process blood is extracted and passed through a machine that separates and preserves the stem cells. These stem cells will then be infused into the recipient, similar to a blood transfusion, as they are compatible," explains María del Mar.
"We want Victoria to be the hope for many people who are waiting for a bone marrow donor," María del Mar explained to SUR on 16 October. "She started with leukaemia when she was three years old, in that first treatment with chemo it went very well, she had two and a half years of treatment, we finished in May 2024," she pointed out.
However, by June 2025 Victoria had relapsed. She began treatment, although this time "it is much harder, I don't know if it is because it is more aggressive or because after what she has been through it is worse, but the first admission, which we have been in for a month and a half, has been horrible. In September, we were told that the chemo was not working as well as before, because the first cycle of chemo was supposed to clean the bone marrow, but that was not happening now and we were told that we had to go for a transplant," María del Mar said.
Bone marrow donation appeal: a simple gesture that can save lives raising public awareness
"Since we had to go through this process, we thought that if we could give visibility to bone marrow donation, raising awareness of how important it is, we should do it. Many people donate blood and not marrow, and all you have to do is fill out a form, do a blood test and take it to the registry. Then you may or may not get a call. You can be lucky enough to be called and save a life," she added.
"With Victoria's first illness we learned to live in the today and the now, here they tell you that this has to be the philosophy, because we don't know if tomorrow she will have low defences, if today she is well and strong and can play, today we play, we try to make people aware of how important it is to donate bone marrow and that Victoria is the hope of many people who are waiting," she concluded.
The campaign helped to increase the number of bone marrow donors in Seville. As the little girl said in one of her videos: "I want there to be many donors, I am a superhero and I want to save all lives."
