Society

Health Ministry dismisses 'negative AIDS' concerns

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-04-07 06:43

BEIJING - There is no evidence that the people claimed to have been infected by the so-called "HIV-Negative AIDS" in China are infected by AIDS virus, according to China's Ministry of Health Wednesday.

Neither are there any clinical, laboratory or epidemiological evidence that these people suffer any infective disease, said Deng Haihua, spokesman of the ministry.

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His remarks was made in response to concerns that some people claimed that they had infected by some AIDS-like virus but were tested to be HIV negative.

The "patients" said they had displayed symptoms very similar with AIDS, such as swollen lymph nodes, subcutaneous bleeding, joint pain, fatigue, nights sweats and emaciation.

They termed it "HIV-Negative AIDS", indicating that there might be a mutation of the AIDS virus, or a new unknown virus.

Deng said the ministry first received relevant report in June 2009, and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) started to investigate into this situation one month later.

From 2009 to 2010, the CDC had tested 59 volunteers of the so-called "HIV-Negative AIDS patients", and found no evidence that there were any infection of a new or unknown virus, Deng said.

A total of 42 of the 59 volunteers said that they had experience of unprotected sex before their symptoms appeared. Some of them said they previously had contacts with AIDS infected, said Zeng Guang, CDC's epidemiology chief scientist.

However, they were tested to be HIV negative, and their CD4 cell ratio in blood, which is an important indicator of the immune system, were found to be in normal level, Zeng said.

There was no mutation of AIDS virus found in the sample tests, said Liang Lianchun, a member of the CDC special research team of the AIDS-like symptoms.

Zeng said the CDC also sent the blood samples to some United States-based laboratories in January this year, and as of the end of March, there was no report of unknown virus found in the tested one third of the samples.

A recent epidemiological probe conducted in February and March this year among the target "patients" in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hunan and Guangdong found no sign of infectivity of the symptoms, Health Ministry spokesman Deng said.

And to date, none of the tested "patients" suffered any infection-caused organic abnormality, and there was no case of any serious illness or deaths among them, he said.

Zeng Guang and some other medical experts believed that the "patients" might suffer from some kind of psychological AIDS phobia.

Zeng said the CDC is still giving assistance and advices to the "patients", and they had received letters from five of the "patients" saying that their symptoms had gone.