Research on this emerging new "HIV-like" microbe has been conducted at the Pasteur Institute of Shanghai, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC), the Army Medical University, and at other institutions. However, scientists at these centres have not yet determined the nature or identity of this pathogen, but have ruled out many possibilities.
The following hospitals and research centres are aware of this outbreak:
Army Medical University (website), Chungking, China. Formerly called the Third Military Medical University. This is a main research centre for the Chinese HIV-like virus, and they also treat patients with the virus here.
Dr Zhong Nanshan (钟南山 in Chinese) of Guangzhou Medical College.
Dr Zhou Rong (周荣 in Chinese) of the State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Diseases at Guangzhou Medical University.
Professor Yue Wang (王月丹 in Chinese), Department of Immunology, Peking University, China.
Dr Cai Weiping (蔡卫平 in Chinese), Infectious Disease Department, Eighth People's Hospital of Guangzhou, China.
Professor Li Taisheng (李太生 in Chinese), Infectious Diseases Department, Beijing Union Medical College Hospital, China.
While most researchers in China have expressed the view that this disease is caused by a microbe such as a virus, the Chinese government has tended to dismiss the opinions of these researchers, and has unfortunately often stated that yinzibing is not a real physical disease. Thus patients with yinzibing face a continued struggle to get medical and government recognition for this disease.
2024: An unpublished metagenomic sequencing study on yinzibing patients, performed in the UK by a private molecular diagnostics company, discovered that all (100%) of these patients have percavirus in their saliva, whereas this virus was not present in the saliva in any of the healthy controls. The patients were from Europe, North America and South America. Percavirus is from the Gammaherpesvirinae subfamily of herpesviruses. Percavirus normally infects horses, and may cause immunosuppression in foals. This finding suggests that yinzibing might be percavirus. Money to fund this UK study was raised by two yinzibing patients in Germany, their websites with details of the study are here and here.
May 2019: A study (local copy here) by the Third Military Medical University on yinzibing found "obvious immune dysfunction and inflammatory reactions" in the patients, and noted that the symptoms and cognitive processes in yinzibing patients are very similar to those of the illness myalgic encephalomyelitis / chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). The study authors suggest yinzibing might be a subtype of ME/CFS.
March 2013: A study (local copy here) performed at the Third Military Medical University, and examining 52 patients with the HIV-like disease (plus an additional 174 cases by telephone questionnaire), concluded that the clinical features of this disease have consistency and regularity, and need to be further investigated. This study also concluded that this HIV-like disease cannot be completely explained by a mental disorder. This study is discussed in this article in the Web of Science Magazine.
October 2011: Dr Zhou Rong (周荣 in Chinese) at the National Laboratory of Respiratory Diseases tested 270 yinzibing patients for various microbes. He observed that the herpes family viruses EBV, HHV-6 and HHV-7 were more frequently detected in the saliva of yinzibing patients than they were in healthy controls. This might be because yinzibing is lowering immunity, and allowing herpes viruses that are normally dormant in the body to reactivate. Sources: here and here.
August 2011: The Peking Union Medical College published a study (local copy here) on 46 patients with the HIV-like disease, in the Chinese Journal of Internal Medicine. Most patients had greater than 500 CD4 cells per mm3, but a few patients had lower counts, in the range of 300 to 500 CD4 cells per mm3. A few patients had inverted CD4/CD8 ratios. The study concluded that the HIV-like disease is a complicated physical and mental condition, whose diagnosis and treatment still need further investigation.
May 2011: Dr Zhong Nanshan (钟南山 in Chinese) of Guangzhou Medical College tested 60 patients with the HIV-like disease, and found each was infected with multiple (but known) pathogens, including Epstein-Barr virus, Chlamydia trachomatis, Ureaplasma urealyticum, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, cytomegalovirus and herpes simplex virus. Experts had different opinions as to why these people were infected with multiple pathogens. Article here.
January 2010: The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention begin research on the HIV-like virus. Results here.
July 2009: The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) investigated many yinzibing patients, and found that these patients are not infected with HIV. China CDC investigations were unable to find any infectious pathogens in these patients that might explain yinzibing symptoms. China CDC also sent yinzibing patient blood samples to the United States for testing, but again nothing was found in the blood. Source: here.
Note 1: the Chinese HIV-like virus detailed on this website is not to be confused with the adult-onset immunodeficiency syndrome found in Southeast Asian countries like Thailand and Taiwan. This Southeast Asian syndrome is a very rare autoimmune condition that is not contagious, and tends to only affect people of Asian descent, typically those who are around 45 to 60 years old.
The adult-onset immunodeficiency syndrome arises as a result of the body making autoantibodies that target and disable interferon gamma, a key part of the immune system. This syndrome was first discovered in 2004, and although the media often label it the "Asian AIDS-like disease" or similar, it appears to have no relation to yinzibing and the Chinese HIV-like virus. So these are two different diseases, but with a similar name.
Note 2: The use of the names "non-HIV AIDS" or "HIV-negative AIDS" to refer to yinzibing is unfortunate, as these two names are also sometimes used to describe the medical condition idiopathic CD4 lymphocytopenia (ICL), which is diagnosed when a person has a CD4 count of less than 300 cells per mm3 of blood in the absence of any HIV virus.
Such a low CD4 count in itself is often not of any great medical concern, as the very elderly may have low CD4 counts in the ICL range, yet remain healthy; and marathon runners often have low CD4 counts in the ICL range.
Temporarily low CD4 counts can also be a consequence of infections such as enterovirus (reference here), Epstein-Barr virus, or cytomegalovirus. Long-term low CD4 counts have been observed in patients with chronic Epstein-Barr virus or cytomegalovirus infections (reference here).