Cuban Toddler with Severe Food Allergies Seeks Urgent Assistance: Nearly Every Meal Poses a Threat

A distressed mother in Havana, Cuba, has turned to social media to seek help for her three-year-old daughter, who suffers from multiple food allergies—a condition that severely restricts her diet and drastically impacts her quality of life. Malvis Cruz, the mother of young Adiren, shared an emotional account on Facebook, detailing the daily struggles of living with this illness in a country where essential resources for treatment are unavailable.

“Hello, my name is Adiren, and I'm a 3-year-old girl who needs help because I have a chronic condition called Multiple Food Allergies. Unfortunately, in my country (Cuba), there is no way to ensure a better quality of life for me,” begins Cruz’s post, written from her daughter’s perspective.

Adiren's life has been fraught with medical challenges since birth. She was separated from her mother immediately after delivery due to complications and fed common milk in her early days, which, according to her mother, caused damage to her stomach and intestines. “Initially, I was lactose intolerant and later allergic to all foods containing beef protein,” the post explains.

As she grew, Adiren developed further intolerances and allergies, including reactions to gluten, eggs, legumes, fish, shellfish, and a seemingly endless list of everyday foods. Her mother recounts how the inability to quickly identify harmful foods gradually destroyed her digestive system, leaving her vulnerable.

Adiren cannot consume foods with preservatives, dyes, or common allergens, effectively eliminating most processed foods from her diet. She has suffered from anaphylactic shock, which threatened her life, as well as multiple severe poisonings that required hospitalization. According to her mother, Adiren also battles secondary issues like chronic anemia from poor absorption of vital nutrients and gastritis.

Due to these dietary restrictions, Adiren relies on specialized medications and supplements unavailable in Cuba. She requires cetirizine syrup, a crucial antihistamine for managing allergic reactions, along with gluten-free, allergen-free vitamins and supplements, none of which are sold in Cuba. Additionally, Adiren needs special allergen-free products like toothpaste, shampoos, creams, and soaps, which are hard to find locally.

In her post, Cruz and her husband express their desperation, appealing for help from anyone who can provide food, supplements, or medical products that would allow their daughter to live a more dignified life. They highlight that while options exist in other countries to manage this condition, they lack access to necessary resources in Cuba.

“Mom and dad are so desperate that they’ve resorted to sharing my story for you to understand the complexity of my situation,” the post reads. They also thank those who have already assisted but emphasize that their daughter’s situation remains dire and that ongoing support is crucial.

“This is my story, and there aren’t many cases like mine in my country. My family is crying out for help for me, desperately,” concludes the mother’s message, appealing for solidarity from those who can lend a helping hand.

In a country where even healthy individuals face immense challenges in securing adequate food, the plight of a child with severe food allergies becomes nearly unsustainable. Earlier this year, a Cuban mother used social media to criticize the government, highlighting that the chocolate mix intended for children lacks sugar and milk—essential ingredients that the regime fails to provide in the basic rationed basket.

Rodríguez Abreu expressed her outrage in the Facebook group “Madres Cubanas Luchadoras,” claiming that she had just purchased the “famous” chocolate mix only to find it “contains no sugar and presumably no milk either.”