Negative tests fail to calm HIV 'patients'
Source: Xinhua |
April 11, 2011, Monday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
DESPITE repeated tests showing negative results, a group of people live in fear, suspecting they have AIDS.
Experts, however, believe it's all in the mind and that they are suffering from a psychological phobia of the disease.
One man convinced there's something wrong is 30-year-old Xiang Jun, not his real name, from Xiangtan, a city in central China's Hunan Province.
After kissing a woman at a karaoke bar last August, he noticed changes in his body.
"My lymph nodes and muscles swelled. 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 said.
He went to two hospitals to take HIV tests. Both came back negative for the virus which causes AIDS.
However, Xiang said some of his relatives and colleagues had developed similar symptoms after he came in contact with them.
All over the Internet, people complained of similar symptoms. Some also mentioned other problems, including aching joints, canker sores and diarrhea, which resemble symptoms of HIV infection.
Some were so worried that they contacted Zeng Guang, chief scientist of epidemiology with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
From 2009 to 2010, the center tested 59 volunteers from the group of what are being referred to as "HIV-negative AIDS" patients, and found no evidence of any infection, Deng Haihua, a Ministry of Health spokesman, said.
Still, some remain unconvinced.
Xiang's friend Lin Fei, also not his real name, suspects his entire family is infected.
"My mother, my wife and my daughter all have fatigue and night sweats. Is it simply because of a 'psychological phobia'?" the 49-year-old asked.
An online comment from "Mr Fear" from Shenzhen in Guangdong Province said: "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."
A task force was set up to investigate "patients" in Beijing and Shanghai, and Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hunan and Guangdong provinces.
Blood samples were sent to laboratories in the United States in January but, as of the end of March, nothing unusual had been found in any of the samples tested.
A task force member, Cai Weiping from the No. 8 People's Hospital in Guangzhou, has closely followed the emergence of the group since 2004. He said most people in the group were middle-aged males who had high-risk sex.
Cai noted the case of one man who forged an HIV-positive report and requested a prescription.
"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 said.
The United Nations estimates that 740,000 Chinese were living with HIV by the end of 2009. Of them, 105,000 were estimated to have AIDS.
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.
There is no official figure of the number of phobia sufferers, but experts fear it is growing.
"The media hype to some extent led some people to panic and to later develop a psychological phobia to the disease," said Zhang Beichuan, a Chinese AIDS expert.
The disease is described as being so horrible that the reports negatively influence the public, he said.
Cai said the use of Internet had increased the number of those in the "HIV-negative AIDS" group.
"They chat online and enhance each other's psychological suggestions," he said. "It is their anxiety, rather than the disease, that has been contagious."
Experts, however, believe it's all in the mind and that they are suffering from a psychological phobia of the disease.
One man convinced there's something wrong is 30-year-old Xiang Jun, not his real name, from Xiangtan, a city in central China's Hunan Province.
After kissing a woman at a karaoke bar last August, he noticed changes in his body.
"My lymph nodes and muscles swelled. 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 said.
He went to two hospitals to take HIV tests. Both came back negative for the virus which causes AIDS.
However, Xiang said some of his relatives and colleagues had developed similar symptoms after he came in contact with them.
All over the Internet, people complained of similar symptoms. Some also mentioned other problems, including aching joints, canker sores and diarrhea, which resemble symptoms of HIV infection.
Some were so worried that they contacted Zeng Guang, chief scientist of epidemiology with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
From 2009 to 2010, the center tested 59 volunteers from the group of what are being referred to as "HIV-negative AIDS" patients, and found no evidence of any infection, Deng Haihua, a Ministry of Health spokesman, said.
Still, some remain unconvinced.
Xiang's friend Lin Fei, also not his real name, suspects his entire family is infected.
"My mother, my wife and my daughter all have fatigue and night sweats. Is it simply because of a 'psychological phobia'?" the 49-year-old asked.
An online comment from "Mr Fear" from Shenzhen in Guangdong Province said: "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."
A task force was set up to investigate "patients" in Beijing and Shanghai, and Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hunan and Guangdong provinces.
Blood samples were sent to laboratories in the United States in January but, as of the end of March, nothing unusual had been found in any of the samples tested.
A task force member, Cai Weiping from the No. 8 People's Hospital in Guangzhou, has closely followed the emergence of the group since 2004. He said most people in the group were middle-aged males who had high-risk sex.
Cai noted the case of one man who forged an HIV-positive report and requested a prescription.
"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 said.
The United Nations estimates that 740,000 Chinese were living with HIV by the end of 2009. Of them, 105,000 were estimated to have AIDS.
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.
There is no official figure of the number of phobia sufferers, but experts fear it is growing.
"The media hype to some extent led some people to panic and to later develop a psychological phobia to the disease," said Zhang Beichuan, a Chinese AIDS expert.
The disease is described as being so horrible that the reports negatively influence the public, he said.
Cai said the use of Internet had increased the number of those in the "HIV-negative AIDS" group.
"They chat online and enhance each other's psychological suggestions," he said. "It is their anxiety, rather than the disease, that has been contagious."
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