Pioneering Diamyd(R) Study to Prevent Childhood Diabete...( STOCKHOLM March 4 /- Diamyd Medic...),Health

STOCKHOLM, March 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Diamyd Medical announces today that the Swedish Medical Products Agency has approved a study with the Diamyd(R) diabetes vaccine in children with high risk to develop type 1 diabetes.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080314/297194 )

"To vaccinate children against diabetes has from the outset been one of Diamyd Medical's long term goals," says Elisabeth Lindner, President and CEO of Diamyd Medical. "Type 1 diabetes is a life-long and very serious disease and it is good if we now can prevent it. It would avoid a lot of anxiety, suffering and costs for the children and their families as well as the rest of Society."

At Malmo University Hospital in Sweden, large screening tests results in a continuous identification of children that are subject to a very high risk of developing type 1 diabetes. By measuring different biomarkers in blood samples, it is possible to determine in an early stage that these children are in the autoimmune disease process that destroys their insulin producing cells.

If vaccination with Diamyd(R) succeeds to intervene in the disease process before too many of the insulin cells are destroyed, the disease will be prevented. The child would then escape diabetes symptoms and would not become dependent on insulin injections for survival, which otherwise is unavoidable.

"We meet with these kids every third month and we know that virtually all of them will present with type 1 diabetes. Many of us pediatricians have been frustrated not to be able to interfere. But now, and I have to admit it feels almost a bit unreal, we may for the first time have a real opportunity to save these children from the disease," says Helena Elding Larsson, pediatrician from Malmo and researcher at Lund University in Sweden.

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