Crown Princes Victoria of Sweden marked World Diabetes Day on Saturday with the release of an official photo showing the heir to the Swedish throne wearing a blue knot bracelet in support of diabetes research.
The bracelet Victoria is wearing can be bought for 100 SEK on the Child Diabetes Foundation website. Proceeds from the sale go to support the fight against type 1 diabetes. The bracelet was designed by Teresa B Lundqvist of Caring by Wearing.
On creating the bracelet, she said: “I hope that many will wear the Blue Knot bracelet and show their support for type 1 diabetes research.”
Åsa Soelberg, Secretary-General of the Child Diabetes Foundation, said: “With the Blue Knot bracelet, we hope to create visibility for the disease together with victims and relatives. We must not forget that type 1 diabetes is Sweden’s most common, life-threatening and incurable disease that affects children. We are Sweden’s largest funder of research on type 1 diabetes, but the funds raised are not on a par with the extent and severity of the disease. In Sweden, we have some of the world’s foremost researchers, and it is our common responsibility to provide the right conditions, to be able to solve the knot that type 1 diabetes is.”
Crown Princess Victoria has been the patron of the Child Diabetes Foundation (Barndiabetesfonden) in Sweden for many years.
In Sweden, 900 children are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes each year; the country has 8,000 children who have the disease.
World Diabetes Day is celebrated every 14 November since its inception in 1991. It has been a official day of the United Nations since 2006.
