Scientist dismisses 'AIDS-like disease' concerns
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E-mail Xinhua, September 4, 2012
A Chinese epidemiologist on Tuesday dismissed public concerns over a latest immunodeficiency disease, after media likened the disease to AIDS due to their similarity in symptoms.
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Free AIDS checks in Chongqing [file photo] |
Scientists from the United States, Taiwan and Thailand said neutralizing anti-interferon autoantibodies were found in Asian adults with multiple opportunistic infections and were associated with an adult-onset immunodeficiency akin to that of advanced HIV infection.
The findings, which were published in the Aug. 23rd edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, have prompted some Chinese media to compare the immunodeficiency to AIDS symptoms and address it as "new type of immunodeficiency in Asian adults".
Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said there was no need to panic as the adult-onset immunodeficiency was neither infectious nor inheritable, qualities that would distinguish it from AIDS.
No evidence could show that such immunodeficiency exists only in Asia,because all the patients of the study have so far only involved people from Thailand and Taiwan and researchers have not officially claimed it was a new disease, Zeng said.
According to the epidemiologist, diseases featuring immunodeficiency have long been recorded. They could be either be born with, or developed after humans caught cancer, or resulted from radiotherapy, chemotherapy, or mental diseases.
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