There is no official figure showing the number of those suffering from the suspected HIV infection, but experts fear the figure is growing, especially since unprotected sex has become the main transmission channel of HIV in China.

    DESPITE repeated tests showing negative results, a group of people live in fear, suspecting that they have been infected with HIV.

    Experts believe they are suffering from psychosomatic symptoms of AIDS, but they say they are patients of “HIV-negative AIDS.”

    Among them is 30-year-old Xiang Jun, who prefers not to use his real name, from Xiangtan, a city in central China’s Hunan Province.

    Since kissing a woman at a karaoke house in August 2010, he has noticed some changes in his body.

    “My lymph nodes and muscles swell. At night, I sweat feverishly. I feel dizzy sometimes and can sleep for a whole day. When feeling ill, I want to kill myself,” he says.

    He has visited hospitals for two HIV tests, and both have come back negative for infection.

    Still, Xiang has noticed that, after coming into contact with him, some of his relatives and colleagues have developed symptoms similar to his.

    He suspects that his disease could be a new, more contagious form of AIDS.

    On the Internet, many people have complained of experiencing symptoms similar to that of Xiang Jun. Some have also complained of other maladies, including joint aches, canker sores, and diarrhea, which resemble symptoms of the HIV infection.

    Some of them have managed to contact Zeng Guang, chief scientist of epidemiology with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

    From 2009 to 2010, the CDC tested 59 volunteers from the group of “HIV-negative AIDS” patients, and found no evidence that any had been infected with HIV, says Deng Haihua, spokesman for the Ministry of Health.

    The results did not suggest that they were infected by any new or unknown viruses, either, Deng says.

    Still, some patients doubt these conclusions.

    Xiang Jun has a friend Lin Fei, also using a fake name, who suspects that his entire family has exhibited these symptoms.

    “My mother, my wife and my daughter all have fatigue and sweat in the night. Is it simply because of a ‘psychological phobia?’” asks the 49-year-old man.

    “My daughter is only six and my son is eight. If our symptoms are due to a psychological phobia, they are too young to know what AIDS really is,” according to “Mr. Fear” from Shenzhen.

    Epidemiological probe ensembled

    A taskforce has been formed to conduct an epidemiological probe in February and March of this year among the target “patients” in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hunan and Guangdong.

    Cai Weiping, a staff member of the No. Eight People’s Hospital in Guangzhou and a member of the team leading the probe, has closely followed the emergence of the group since 2004. According to him, most of the people in the group are “middle-aged males who have participated in high-risk sex.”

    “The symptoms were described according to their subjective experiences without clinical representation. Sometimes they complained of swollen lymph nodes and fevers but doctors could not verify these symptoms,” he said.

    Cai says three of the men who suspect that they themselves have been infected by HIV have taken their wives to the hospital, too, but doctors can not find the symptoms as described by their spouses.

    He remembers the extreme case of a man from Guangdong Province, who forged an HIV-positive report and requested a prescription from the doctor.

    “He took the medicine for some time and felt that his symptoms disappeared, but all his clinical indices remained almost unchanged. After being questioned by the doctor, he admitted that the HIV positive report was a fake,” Cai says.

    HIV can be transmitted through three channels: sex, blood and from mother to child during birth.

    UNAIDS estimated that 740,000 Chinese of the total population of 1.3 billion were living with HIV by the end of 2009. Among them, 105,000 were estimated to be AIDS cases.

    By the end of August 2010, the cumulative total of reported HIV-positive cases was 361,599, including 127,203 AIDS cases and 65,104 recorded deaths from the disease.

    Media reports spread fear

    There is no official figure showing the number of those suffering from the “phobia,” but experts fear the figure is growing, especially since unprotected sex has become the main transmission channel of HIV in China.

    “The media hype to some extent led some people to panic and to later develop a psychological phobia to the disease,” says Zhang Beichuan, a well-known Chinese AIDS expert.

    While the aim of these media reports is to investigate the spread of HIV/AIDS, the disease is described as being so horrible that the reports negatively influence the public, he says.

    Cai Weiping notes that the use of Internet increases the amount of those in the “HIV-negative AIDS” group.

    “They chat online and validate each other suggestions,” he says. “It is their anxiety, rather than the disease, that has proven contagious.”

    His view is shared by Zhang Beichuan, who suggests that treatment for the psychological problem should be improved.

    Lin Peng, head of the Institute for AIDS Prevention and Treatment under the Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, does not rule out the possibility of finding a new virus in the future.

    Blood samples were sent to some U.S.-based laboratories in January this year, and as of the end of March, there had been no reports of an unknown virus found in one-third of the tested samples.

    “With the development of medical science, it is hard to say whether a new virus would be found or not,” Lin said.

    “But one thing is for sure: currently, no new infectious disease has been discovered.”

    He called on the public to be sensible.

    “People should also keep themselves clean and always stay away from casual sex and drugs,” he said.

    (Xinhua)