Researchers are reporting that a new disease is affflicting many in Asia and some in the United States with AIDS-like symptoms despite the patients not being infected with HIV.

The researchers do not believe the disease is infectious but like AIDS leaves the patients with damaged immune systems that leave them vulnerable to germs that an ordinary immune system can fend off.

Thailand and Taiwan have the most cases of the disease since 2004. Researchers speculate that some kind of infection could be behind the outbreak of the disease in adults and thus it doesn’t spread person to person.

The report states that the disorder will appear around age 50 and that it appears to not run within families, ruling out some kind of individual gene being the cause. Most of the victims of the disease died from overwhelming infections including Asians living in the United States.

The disease differs from HIV in that it doesn’t destroy T-cells but causes other kinds of damage to the immune system. Most victims of the disease create a substance called “autoantibodies” that block the chemical signal that makes the body clear infections.

Dr. Sarah Browne of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases says that many of the cases in third world countries are mistaken as tuberculosis.

“Fundamentally, we do not know what’s causing them to make these antibodies,” Browne stated.