( CNN ) -- Researchers at the National Institutes of Health ( NIH ) have identified a new disease among people in Asia that causes AIDS-like symptoms but is not associated with HIV . The study , released in the New England Journal of Medicine Thursday , found patients with the disease were making antibodies that attacked their immune systems . `` We all make molecules and proteins in the body that tell our immune system how to function properly , '' said Dr. Sarah Browne , a clinical investigator at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at NIH and the lead author on the study . `` They tell different immune cells when to turn on and when to start fighting infection , '' she said . `` We found a large number of the patients that we studied with serious opportunistic infections make an antibody that blocks the function of one of these molecules , which is interferon-gamma . '' Without functioning interferon-gamma , people become more susceptible to certain types of infections -- infections people with working immune systems normally do n't get , she said . The disease is being called an adult-onset immunodeficiency syndrome because it strikes adults . Cases date back to 2004 , with most of them occurring in Thailand and Taiwan . The NIH has been studying the disease since 2005 . `` It 's rare -- more prevalent over in Southeast Asia , '' Browne told CNN . `` But we have been diagnosing it here in the U.S. in individuals of Asian descent . '' So far NIH has seen about 12 cases , all of them in people of Asian descent . According to Browne , most patients survive . There have been deaths in other countries , she said , but did not know how many . No one has died in the United States . Dr. Anthony Fauci , director of NIAID , says it 's important to note the disease is not contagious . `` It is not a virus , that 's the first thing . It 's not a new AIDS-like virus , '' Fauci said . `` It 's a syndrome that was noticed and discovered in Asia where people get opportunistic infections similar to HIV/AIDS , but the cause of the syndrome is not an infection like HIV . '' Fauci said researchers `` found the people have an autoimmunity , where their bodies are making antibodies against a protein that 's important in fighting infection . `` The reason the body is making that antibody is unclear but it is n't a virus like HIV that 's causing it , '' he said. `` It 's autoimmune disease , and people get secondary infections similar to AIDS . '' The study was already in the early stages in 2009 , when Kim Nguyen , a 62-year-old Vietnamese woman from Tennessee , came to NIH suffering from symptoms that would be linked to the mystery disease . A little more than 200 people -- almost exclusively from Thailand and Taiwan between the ages of 18 and 78 -- were studied . All were HIV-negative . `` We want to understand what triggers people to make these antibodies in the first place , '' Browne said . `` And we want to use that information to guide treatment -- because really , when you treat the infection you 're treating the symptom . You 're not treating the underlying cause . '' Right now , doctors are simply treating the infections . For many of the patients , that 's sufficient , Browne said , but for those cases where it 's not , they are trying to find ways to target the antibodies themselves by lowering the antibody levels and trying to reverse the immunodeficiency . Both Fauci and Browne believe a combination of both genetic and environmental factors are most likely at play , but do n't yet know what those factors are . `` Overall it appears to be a chronic disease , but we have not yet studied it for a long enough period of time to know the long-term prognosis , '' Browne said . `` We do n't yet know what factors may distinguish those with mild versus those with severe disease . ''
Patients with disease are making antibodies that attack their immune system . Cases date back to between the ages of 18 and 78 , with most of them occurring in Thailand and Thailand . Scientists do not believe the disease is contagious . The CNN has seen one cases , all in people of Vietnamese descent .