Prince Frederik of Luxembourg dies aged 22 from rare disease
Prince Frederik of Luxembourg has died aged 22 after a lifelong battle with a rare genetic disorder known as POLG mitochondrial disease.
He passed away on March 1 in Paris, his family announced on the website of the POLG Foundation, which Frederik started in 2022, News.Az reports, citing CNN.
“It is with a very heavy heart that my wife and I would like to inform you of the passing of our son, The POLG Foundation Founder and Creative Director, Frederik,” his father Prince Robert of Luxembourg wrote.
The foundation describes POLG as a “genetic mitochondrial disorder that robs the body’s cells of energy, in turn causing progressive multiple organ dysfunction and failure.”
It said the disease has no treatment or cure.
“Frederik and the POLG Foundation … are committed to finding therapies and a cure to save other patients from suffering what Frederik and our family have endured,” his father wrote.
Prince Frederik died a day after Rare Disease Day. He was in his early 20s.
Despite his condition he “found the strength and the courage to say goodbye to each of us in turn – his brother, Alexander; his sister, Charlotte; me; his three cousins, Charly, Louis, and Donall; his brother-in-law, Mansour; and finally, his Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Mark,” Prince Robert wrote.
Frederik was “disciplined and organised beyond belief,” the statement said.
“On Friday [the day before he died], his Italian Duolingo and exercise alarm went off like any other day.”
Prince Frederik was diagnosed with POLG at 14, which causes such a wide range of symptoms and affects many different organ systems, making it very difficult to diagnose and has no treatments or a cure, the statement said.
“As is the case for 300 million people like Frederik worldwide, these diseases are usually hard to recognise even by physicians, and patients’ families may never know what they are suffering from as they may only be identified very late in their progression,” his father wrote.
“One might compare it to having a faulty battery that never fully recharges, is in a constant state of depletion and eventually loses power,” Prince Robert wrote.
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