New HIV-Like Virus Emerging in China

Yinzibing: A New AIDS-Like Infectious Disease

This website details an emerging new HIV-like virus called yinzibing, also referred to as the Chinese HIV-like virus, which has been spreading in China since 2003 or earlier, and which is infecting people in other countries around the world as well. 

The data presented on this site comes from published scientific studies on yinzibing, as well as from Chinese laboratory reports, Chinese hospital reports, Chinese and English media articles, and from web forums and blogs of infected patients. 

The yinzibing virus is characterised by its ability to cause a chronic AIDS-like deterioration in both physical health and mental health in some individuals who catch it.

An epidemiological study found the chronic physical symptoms of yinzibing include: a white tongue coating, a chronic sore throat, twitching muscles, noisy joints (crepitus), dry skin, recurrent stomach aches, burping, rumbling bowels, chronic flatulence, swollen lymph nodes, fatigue, poor sleep, cold hands and feet, and many others. A larger list of symptoms below. 

The persistent mental symptoms caused by yinzibing may include: extreme anxiety, depression and anhedonia, which can lead to suicidal thoughts.

The yinzibing virus transmits by blood or saliva, and just by normal social contact, tends to infect all members of a household within a few months once one household member has caught it. However, only a small percentage of individuals who catch the Chinese HIV-like virus become chronically ill; these susceptible people then experience a nasty persistent illness that may continue for years. But most people who catch yinzibing do not manifest any significant long-term symptoms.

The incubation period of yinzibing is a few days (this is the time it takes for the first acute symptoms to appear after initial exposure to the virus). Then in the first 3 months after catching the virus, many of the chronic yinzibing symptoms will begin to manifest in susceptible people.

Patients often report catching yinzibing through sex. But the yinzibing virus is quickly and easily transmitted by deep kissing (French kissing), as the virus is present in the saliva, and such kissing often takes place during sex. So although individuals who caught yinzibing from a sexual encounter may think they have contracted a sexual disease, yinzibing is a respiratory virus which spreads by saliva and through normal social contact.

Once someone catches yinzibing, over the next few months or years, the virus will slowly spread to other people around them just by everyday social contact. It will typically spread to family members, friends, work colleagues, and anyone else who has close contact with the infected person. Infected parents may transmit the virus to their young children, who may then experience developmental disorders as a result of acquiring this virus.

Most viruses are only significantly contagious during the acute phase of the infection (the acute stage lasts for days to a week or so); but people infected with yinzibing remain infectious for years, transmitting the virus to others well after their acute infection is over. This long-lasting infectious period explains why individuals with yinzibing tend to slowly spread the virus to most of the people around them.  

The psychiatric symptoms the yinzibing virus can induce in infected people are problematic: yinzibing can cause severe psychological symptoms, including: constant extreme anxiety states (generalised anxiety disorder), depression, anhedonia, suicidal ideation, poor memory and cognitive dysfunction. These mental symptoms presumably arise from the effects of the viral infection on the brain. Yinzibing can induce a chronic inflammatory state in various body organs; now recent research has found that conditions such as anxiety and depression are associated with ongoing low-level brain inflammation; so induction of inflammation may be how yinzibing precipitates psychiatric symptoms. 

Due to the severe anxiety states caused by this virus (and because this pathogen is often caught during sex), some yinzibing patients become fearful that they may have caught HIV, and their worry leads them to take repeated HIV blood tests — sometimes taking 10 or more HIV tests in rapid succession — even though each test shows negative results. It seems that the anxiety condition precipitated by yinzibing impairs rational judgement and disturbs normal thought processes, resulting in the irrational behaviour of taking the HIV test over and over again.

Because of the anxiety states triggered by yinzibing, and because of the multiple HIV tests that some patients with this pathogen may take, doctors in China originally dubbed yinzibing as the fear of AIDS virus.

But several laboratories in China, including the Pasteur Institute of Shanghai and the Chinese CDC, have investigated patients infected with yinzibing and have determined that this pathogen is not a mutated HIV virus or a new HIV strain. So this fear of AIDS is unwarranted. 

Nevertheless, although yinzibing patients test negative for HIV, some patients are found to have slightly low CD4 cell count (similar to the low CD4 caused by AIDS), and yinzibing can cause a chronic, persistent infection, and a health deterioration that does not disappear. So in that respect, the virus is HIV-like. 

The Chinese government have tended to deny that this AIDS-like virus exists, though many research scientists and doctors in China are aware of yinzibing, and have no doubts about its reality. However, to an extent, Chinese government censorship prevents these scientists and doctors from voicing their views too loudly. 

Symptoms of the Chinese AIDS-Like Disease 

The following symptoms manifest in susceptible patients who contract the Chinese HIV-like pathogen (a more comprehensive list on the symptoms page). An individual yinzibing patient will not have all of these symptoms, but may experience many of them.

General Symptoms

Fatigue and weakness • Poor sleep • Easily awoken from sleep • Chronic low-grade fever • Night sweats • Weight loss in first 3 months • Some years later, weight gain on abdomen.

Throat and Mouth

Chronic sore throat • Permanent thick white tongue coating, sometimes with red spots on tip of tongue (see pictures of symptoms) • Oral ulcers.

Gums and Teeth

Receding gums (periodontitis) • Gum inflammation (gingivitis) • Bleeding gums • Brown dental plaque may rapidly appear on teeth.

 Eyes

Red bloodshot eyes (conjunctivitis) may appear when first catching the virus • Blurred vision.

Skin

Red rash (purpura rash) • Peeling skin (see pictures of symptoms) • Skin may become dry • Rapidly ageing skin (wrinkles appearing) • Loss of subcutaneous fat (lipodystrophy or lipoatrophy) • Subcutaneous nodules may appear (see pictures of symptoms).

Nails and Hair

Nail loss • Hair loss • After some years, body hair may become thin and fall out. 

Torso

Chest pain • Chest tightness • Backache • Shortness of breath • Fast heart rate (tachycardia). 

Muscles and Peripheral Nerves

Sensation of insects crawling under the skin (formication) • Constantly twitching muscles (fasciculations) • Muscle pain. 

Hands and Feet

Cold hands and feet • Hand and foot numbness.

Joints and Bones

Joints make grinding, creaking, crunching, cracking, clicking or popping sounds when moved (crepitus is the medical term for this sound) • Pain in the joints (arthralgias) • Bone pain (osteodynia).

Stomach and Intestines

Chronic flatulence • Recurrent stomach ache • Abdominal pain • Nausea • Chronic diarrhoea in early stage of infection • Belching and burping (due to excess stomach gas) • Loose stools • Melena (dark slimy stools).

Lymph Nodes

Chronically swollen lymph nodes (especially in the lower jaw, and groin) • Lymph node pain. 

Organs

Organ pathologies may appear (in the liver, gallbladder, kidney, lung and intestines) • Thyroid enlargement (thyroid hypertrophy).

Neurological

Dizziness • Vertigo (a sensation of motion or spinning) • Tinnitus • Reduction of hearing acuity • Headache • Some patients may experience an episode of meningitis.

Psychological

Generalised anxiety disorder • Depression • Anhedonia (loss of ability to experience pleasure or reward from life's activities) • Suicidal ideation • Poor memory, confusion and cognitive dysfunction (brain fog). 

Immunological

Some Chinese HIV-like virus patients may have a low CD4 cell count, inverted CD4/CD8 ratio, and low complement C3 and C4. More information about the immunological abnormalities found in yinzibing patients here. 

Effect of Yinzibing on Children

Child development may be retarded • Girls' menstrual periods may be disrupted.

Transmission of the Chinese HIV-Like Virus 

This AIDS-like virus in China transmits by saliva and blood, and so this pathogen can instantly spread by deep kissing (French kissing), and can also eventually transmit to other people by normal social contact. There are reports that yinzibing can be spread by body sweat. A person infected with yinzibing remains able to infect others for a long period of time (for years, or indefinitely).

Chinese mealtime customs involve family members sharing food from the same plate with their chopsticks; this may allow saliva from one infected person's mouth to contaminate the food, and then infect other family members. This sharing of food custom may explain why yinzibing is spreading fast in China. 

Disease Prognosis 

The first year is the worst period for patients with the Chinese HIV-like virus; but after a year or two, many patients find that their symptoms substantially improve. Some yinzibing patients report they are feeling much better after a year or so: not quite 100% cured, but feeling 90% better. And laboratory reports may show that low CD4 counts return to normal after a few years with this virus. However, there are also yinzibing patients who do not get better, and who remain ill indefinitely. 

One 2019 study suggests the illness caused by yinzibing may be a subtype of myalgic encephalomyelitis / chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), a disease triggered by certain viral infections. 

Once ME/CFS is triggered by a virus, in some people, ME/CFS eventually clears itself up after 6 months to 2 years of post-viral fatigue; but for others they continue suffering ME/CFS indefintely. Yinzibing seems to follow this pattern: some people with yinzibing get better after around a year, but others remain ill long term.

So for those who have just caught yinzibing, the hardest part is getting through the first year of terrible symptoms, which may include anxiety, depression and anhedonia, and waiting for these symptoms to hopefully subside. Patients in China report anti-inflammatory herbs and supplements may be beneficial for treating the symptoms of yinzibing. 

It would make sense that the yinzibing illness is a special form of ME/CFS, because other viruses which are linked to triggering ME/CFS (such as enterovirus and Epstein-Barr virus) only seem to cause ME/CFS in a small percentage of people who catch them, which is what we also see with yinzibing: out of all those who catch yinzibing, it only causes an AIDS-like or ME/CFS-like illness in a small percentage.

References for the above-listed yinzibing symptoms here. The general info on this page sourced from the published yinzibing studies listed here, and from the media articles listed here.