About 25 percent of Yemen's population have liver diseases, the highest rate in the Arab states that triggers warnings of a health disaster in the poorest country in the region, the World Health Organization has revealed.
The other 75 percent of the Yemeni people face threats of pandemics spread through water, it said, pointing out that more than 3 million people already live with liver diseases due to 'unclear water'.
Some 17 million people live with C Virus and about 4.3 million others live with B Virus in the MENA region, it said.
Liver diseases have dangerous effects which lead to death in some cases, it said, adding that such diseases kill about one million around the world.
The highest rates of C Virus h were registered in Yemen and Egypt, it said.
One of the reasons for the spread of liver diseases in the country is chewing qat, a stimulus tree chewed by about 70 percent of the men and 50 percent of the women on daily bases, according to a study by a Yemeni researcher cited by the WHO.
The chewers keep the leaves of this tree, mostly grown with chemical pesticides and reaped very early, between 2 to 10 hours a day and that how this tree attacks the livers of the Yemeni people, the study said.
The study warned of serious consequences amid continuous addiction to qat due to the wrong culture and talk about the advantage of a killer tree.