(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."
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Patients with disease are making antibodies that attack their immune system
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Cases date back to 2004, with most of them occurring in Thailand and Taiwan
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Scientists do not believe the disease is contagious
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The NIH has seen about 12 cases, all in people of Asian descent
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