A critically ill student has taken to social media to try and track down a stem-cell donor in a last ditch attempt to save her life.

Medical student Vithiya Alphons, 24, was in a lecture at Cardiff University when she began to feel unwell.

Little did she know her body was in fact fighting a deadly disease.

In her final year of ophthalmologist studies, Vithiya was diagnosed with aggressive leukaemia,

Doctors gravely admitted she has only two months to find a donor or will die.

The blow came after there were initial positive signs following intensive courses of chemotherapy over four weeks.

After immediately starting the treatment, she said: “I was in so much pain, vomiting six or seven times every day, and had every side effect possible, but I tried to stay positive.

“I felt normal again, I’d been home for three weeks and my hair was growing back. I felt so positive.

“My nurses, consultant, everyone, thought we’d beaten it.

“But unfortunately, further tests showed the leukaemia was still there in my blood and I’d definitely relapse in under a year unless I had a stem cell transplant.

“It was so upsetting and unexpected.”

Vithiya Alphons (Help, Save V's Life Facebook)

Doctors told her that had it lain undiscovered for any longer, there was a real chance she would not have seen another day.

Vithiya recalled: “I asked if I could go back to uni, and I remember the doctors looking at me and saying no way.

“They explained, ‘If you’d left it a few more days, your parents would have been organising your funeral this week.’ It was a shock.

“I just thought, ‘thank God I’m still alive.”

Her only hope now is a stem-cell transplant, and she is desperately searching for a match.

But she is in a critical race against time, made all the more difficult by her Sri Lankan heritage.

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Her 22-year-old brother Clime, who immediately quit his job as a network engineer to be his sister, was only 50 per cent compatible.

She has launched appeals on social media in a bid to encourage people from a south Asian background to join the world’s register, set up by charity Anthony Nolan.

Despite being faced with the limited options, she remains optimistic.

She added: “I knew it was going to be difficult because there aren’t many people from South Asian backgrounds who are signed up as donors.

“I’m a big believer that everything happens for a reason.

“Maybe it will make sense one day. In the meantime I’m determined to raise awareness in my community.

“Even if it doesn’t help me, it could help someone else.”