Hereditary disease threatens survival of Yemeni family

HAJJAH, Aug. 04 (Saba)- Healthy sources have unveiled an odd
hereditary disease has been infecting tens of a Yemeni family's
members who living at a village in the northern province of Hajjah.

According to a reportage published on Saturday by the Saba-run
al-Syasiah daily, the hereditary disease led to the death of almost
25 people of the family which living at Biet Murad village in Hajjah.

"There are 12 others of this afflicted family are currently
suffering disability due to the 70 year-old disease", said the
sources.

"The disease is either to contaminate cerebellum, characterized by
shiver and loss of balance and then ends the patient to the
inability to talk and movement, or infects spinal cord causing the
turning of the arms and legs inside out".

Referring the disease may be hereditary, doctors were quoted by Saba
that it is the result of marriage among close relatives.

It was affecting people over the age of forty, but during the past
10 years, a number of that family's children were infected with the
disease.

The reportage warned of a humanitarian and social disaster caused by
the disease in that village, pointing out that high rate of
infection was registered among young people, leading to declining
living life for the majority of the family members, "the fact that
most of them were working in farms and markets of qat, and they do
not receive government salaries.