Mysterious disease inherited throughout generations in a Yemeni village

The first symptoms of the disease appear in many young men, living in Bait Murad area, as atrophy in the upper parts of the body.

Patients’ groans are commonly heard when moving anywhere in Bait Murad area, especially in the al-Qainiah village, for dozens of people continue to be threatened by a vague hereditary disease.   In the al-Qainiah village, which has become a sort of ghost village, there is at least one sick person per house. Some families have more than three ill people, some still alive or that passed away due to this disease.

At least 25 people died in Bait Murad area, in Hajjah governorate, as a result of a hereditary disease, doctors said, and that began 70 years ago in one family as the aged people of the area remember. The disease, which recently spread through 12 young people from the same family, has become more dangerous and lethal than ever before.

It is estimated that this sickness will threaten no less than 200 people inside and outside afflicted family during the next ten years. However, there are no official statistics on the extent of the disease.     The hereditary disease first showed affecting people aged forty and above, and it was perceived as an acceptable and normal result of ageing. Later on it was noticed that it did not differentiate between men and women, children and adults. It stays in a latent state, hiding during years, and then slowly starts to be mortal. 

Rumors 
No one knows what exactly happened to the family whose members became sick one by one, prior to their dead when they did not even reach their forties. The high rates of illiteracy among people in this area play an important role in spreading various rumors to explain the disease, away from scientific explanations.

Elderly people here, in areas surrounding the stricken village, contribute with many rumors that link the illness to a curse of injustice occurred long time ago.
One of these rumors says that one of the family’s ancestors looted funds and lands from other people’s property. According to another rumor, the ancestor of this family turned down an offer of a prophet to fill his pot water, and ridiculed him getting afterwards the disease as a form of punishment.

However, such rumors lead the infection rates of the disease to increase among people living in this area, as they do not pay attention to the scientific explanation of the disease being a hereditary malady, thus continuing to marry their relatives on grounds of tribal and social inheritance. 

The Killer  
Seventy years ago, Humad Ali Murad did not know that he would be responsible for spreading the sickness to 35 people over 3 generations.

He was not afflicted by this disease but he passed it to his sons Abdullah and Yahya, who died due to this hereditary sickness. This family’s third generation has witnessed how the illness became stronger although for the first and second generation it acted quietly, still killing men and women but not in the high rates that it presented for the case of the third generation.

The disease affects its victims in two ways: it distresses the balance center of the body, which has as symptoms that the sick person loses balance and feels an increased tremor every day, along with an evident atrophy in the upper parts. In its middle and last stages, it causes the victim to be unable to walk and to finally lose the capacity of movement and speech.

The second possibility is that it may affect the body’s main nerve center, causing nerves to be contracted and parts of the body to be bent. The patient then stops walking, suffering from atrophy in the lower part of the body.  

Suffering  
Musab, a 14-year-old boy says that he wishes to recover and return to playing. His legs are bent and attached to his thighs, not allowing him to open them and walk.    

Two years ago, his eldest brother died from the same disease. 
Musab has been suffering from this disease four years ago, but he now feels that his fate will be the same as his brother’s.

“I made many attempts to treat my eldest son but hope is missing,” said Musab’s father, Mohammed Saghir. “Then, I traveled to provide him with a treatment in Saudi Arabia where doctors used a physical therapy (massage). I uselessly spent more than one million Yemeni riyals. Ultimately, Yemeni doctors informed me that he was suffering from atrophy in his brain and had no cure.”

It is a slow death as described by Mahran Ali Murad, a young man, who had dreamt to be a pilot. But he does not lose hope despite the fact that he is affected by the disease. 

“I was afflicted by the disease since I was in fourth grade. I could not continue to study because I was no longer able to walk to school,” he said.

Mahran, 16, is suffering from this disease 7 years ago, but he - compared to other cases - is most likely as his case does not rapidly deteriorate. He refuses help from anyone if he intends to stand on his trembling feet. 

Ali Murad, 40, is still only breathing while he is staring upwards. He cannot talk or move but sometimes he produces some moans to reflect his thirst or hunger. His illness began 15 years ago to deteriorate just before 6 years, according to his son. Waheeb, 4, aspires to accompany his afflicted father to the market “to buy me a game.” 

Humanitarian social catastrophe 
After raising the incidence of this genetic disease among young people of this area, it has become not only a health catastrophe, but also a humanitarian and social calamity.    

The majority of people living in this village are working in farms and qat markets to ensure their life and it is rare to find employees in any of the government facilities. This means that the disease over burdens people with heavy expenses, especially as there are more than one sick person per house.  

Only YR 6,000 are paid every three months as a means of social insurance for a little number of afflicted people in this area, leaving aside many other that are forgotten and do not have the money to pay some of the heavy expenses required for medicine.  

“We handed over the Local Council a file on this disease and its patients, but it did not provoke any action,” said Omar Murad, a health worker in this area.

Mahran’s father said that he remembers that a committee from the Disabled Fund came some years ago and saw the patients’ bad conditions. “However, we were asked to hand over YR 4,500 for every sick person for their medical treatment. We have not seen anything so far except some T-shirts with the symbol of the Fund,” he said.   

It is also estimated that many bachelorhood and spinsterhood cases are spreading among the people of this village, especially after the transmission of this disease among great numbers of them. 

Medicine needs long time 
At a meeting of specialists in one of the largest Yemeni advisory hospitals, most of them said that the disease is a hereditary illness which affects men, women, children and adults alike.

They refused to give any other information on the final diagnosis of the disease without taking the patients’ full history and direct clinical examination.  

They initially diagnosed this disease through patients’ photos as a hereditary cerebello-spinal dystrophy which resulted from consanguineous marriages.    

This disease, as doctors believed, requires a complicated treatment which may take many years as it slowly spreads.  

The best solution to get rid of this disease, over the long term, is to abide by the advice before marriage and to examine the DNA of the couple, doctors said.

In the case of any former married couple, doctors say that it is an important thing to examine the DNA of their fetus during the early months of pregnancy to make sure that the infection is not present in the baby. 

Urgent legal solutions and appropriate advisory opinions are needed to be determined when the fetus is discovered to carry the same disease, especially since the disease is no longer a tragedy, but a sickness that needs everyone’s efforts in order to be eliminated.

There is a strong call for local and international organizations, scholars, preachers, political parties, academic researchers and media to move together with the government, particularly the Ministry of Health, and to help stop the spreading of this disease. They are also asked to preserve what is left of the existing generations in this area, to prevent the disease’s transmission to future generations, and to study the ambiguity surrounding this disease.

*Source: Saba News Agency
Translated by Yemen Observer 
The first symptoms of the disease appear in many young men, living in Bait Murad area, as atrophy in the upper parts of the body.

Related Content

•  Fighting AIDS and misinformation remains an international concern
•  Poverty and water discussed in recent analysis
•  More than 600,000 students targeted in bilharzia campaign
•  Higher population growth spurs national efforts
•  New elections done to increase arguments among Yemeni doctors
•  UNICEF delivers essential supplies for children and families hit by floods in Hadhramout
•  Tetra Pak Arabia celebrates Yemen Milk Carnival
•  Election for leader of Yemeni doctors concludes
•  Recent spotlight on liver and gastrointestinal tract diseases
•  Eight medical facilities opened for YR 106 million