HONG KONG, Dec 1 (AFP) - China marked world AIDS day Wednesday by taking a television advertising campaign promoting the use of condoms off air, dealing a fresh blow to efforts to contain the explosive growth of the disease in Asia.

While government agencies in India spent the day handing out free condoms to prostitutes, officials in Beijing were confirming that the country's first television campaign for condoms would not continue.

China's Family Planning Propaganda and Education Center on Sunday began running tv adverts showing a cartoon-style condom fighting off the attacks of the AIDS virus and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Captions said "Avoiding unwanted pregnancies" and "Use a condom, no trouble."

But the initiative proved short-lived. The State Administration for Industry and Commerce Administration Bureau said Wednesday that print, radio and television advertising of condoms remained banned.

"Presently according to the State Advertisement Law, sex products cannot be advertised," an official told AFP.

Chinese authorities insist the country does not have a major AIDS problem. Official figures put the number of people known to have the HIV virus at 15,088.

But some of China's own medical experts believe the true figure is closer to 400,000 and international experts have identified the free market zones of southern China as one of the areas where infection is rising steeply.

The contrast with India's approach could not be sharper, although sex industry workers complained that government condom distribution campaigns were not far-reaching enough.

Nimmi Bai, who runs a New Delhi brothel, told AFP the supply of health department condoms did not meet the huge demand.

"Everyone is frightened about AIDS and so are we. But where are the condoms? Going by the number of prostitutes operating here we need at least 40 to 50 boxes of condoms every month," said Nimmi Bai.

"But we hardly get 10 to 20 boxes and they never arrive on a fixed date. In July we got only 10 boxes after a gap of three full months."

Bai said prostitutes were aware of the risk of AIDS but could not afford to buy their own condoms but were aware of the threat.

"I just tell my girls to be very firm with clients who don't want to wear condoms. We have phelwans (tough guys) to throw out the ones kicking up a fuss," said Bai.

India admitted last month that as many as 3.5 million of its citizens may be HIV carriers -- equivalent to more than half the estimated total number of infected people in Asia.

In contrast to China, communist Vietnam appears to be facing up to the AIDS problem. Official media on Wednesday highlighted the explosive growth of the disease, which has left more than 150,000 people infected with HIV, according to semi-official estimates.

"This epidemic has spread at great speed these last few years. It will become a burning issue for Vietnam in the first years of the next century," the anti-AIDS national committee vice president Chung A told the communist party newspaper Nhan Dan.

Vietnamese television this week highlighted the AIDS risk posed by thousands of HIV-positive prostitutes who have returned to Vietnam from neighbouring Cambodia.

"Cambodia continues to have the worst AIDS epidemic in Asia, and this is a serious issue for Cambodians," said Bill Pigott from the World Health Organisation (WHO).

"We have to get the young people to recognise the danger of AIDS."

The campaign, launched in conjunction with the health ministry and scores of international aid groups, is aimed at delivering better sexual health education to a younger generation now accustomed to regular trips to the brothel.

Cambodia, with a population of just over 11 million, has an estimated 200,000 people with HIV and around 50 percent of its sex workers are infected.

Approximately 60 percent of Cambodian men visit brothels on a regular basis.

In Thailand, doctors warned that hundreds of thousands of Thais with the HIV virus would soon develop AIDS but expressed confidence that the rate of new infections was under control.

Thailand, with its developed sex trade and high incidence of drug use has one of the highest rate of infection in the world -- nearly one million people have HIV.

But experts say education campaigns are now working and the rate of new HIV infections is slowing.

Thai public health agencies organised a television program Wednesday to persuade people to have blood tests before marriage and starting families in a bid to spread to check the generational spread of the disease.

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