NEW DELHI, Nov 28 (AFP) - At his ramshackle shop in a huge New Delhi slum, barber Dinesh Takur hands out a free condom with each haircut in an innovative scheme to prevent HIV in India, where experts fear an AIDS epidemic similar to that which has devastated parts of Africa.
Takur, 38, charges 25 rupees (50 cents) for a shave or trim, but the hundreds of customers he sees each week also take away free advice on how to protect themselves and their families from HIV.
For the past few months he has attended education sessions organised by FXB, a Swiss-based nongovernmental organisation working to raise awareness of AIDS, and proudly displays their HIV helpline number on his mirror.
"People can't generally talk openly about AIDS and so there are a lot of things people here don't know about it," he said as dabbed shaving foam on a customer.
"But now that I have learnt about the disease and how to prevent it, then I can pass that on to my customers."
Experts say this kind of scheme will be invaluable in preventing the growth of AIDS in India, where the government says 4.58 million Indians are living with HIV/AIDS, the second largest number after South Africa, which has an infected population of around five million.
FXB started its barber project last year and is hoping to eventually reach all 7,000 barbers in Delhi and, through them, much of the male population of the city.
"We want to make barbers the peer educators," said Jagdish Harsh, FXB's India director.
"Barber shops are a hub of gossip and men can discuss sex and sexuality openly in them."
FXB is planning to extend its scheme to beauty parlours, to draw women into the awareness net, and to shops selling alcohol.
Health Minister Sushma Swaraj had caused consternation among some AIDS activists by calling for India's anti-AIDS policies to focus on sexual abstinence rather than condom use, reportedly under pressure from religious conservatives who are close to the Hindu nationalist government.
But Swaraj told AFP that while Indians already knew that condoms could prevent HIV, many were largely ignorant about the disease.
"In keeping with our strategy for preventing AIDS we continue to stress the use of condoms, safe blood and sterilised needles," she said.
She said there was no epidemic in India and no "covering up" of the problem.
"The stigma attached to the disease must be wiped out and in India we have to fight a hard battle on this front," she added.
Some experts believe the number of infections in India is actually much higher that the government figure.
"I think the figure of 4.5 million is an underestimate," said Albina du Boisrouvray, founder and president of FXB.
"It is an epidemic that is running silently and invisibly. It is an emergency, the house is on fire and people are going to be dying at such rates that it will be a huge community problem.
"Look at Africa -- Malawi and Zimbabwe. We have to take example from other countries where nothing was done and now it is a disaster.
"India can be different, but we have to take any measures possible to stop it and this can be difficult with the cultural taboos on talking about sex, homosexuality and extra-marital affairs."
Last year Indian officials were furious that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has pledged 200 million dollars to combat the spread of AIDS in India, endorsed a study that predicted there would be 20-25 million Indians infected with HIV by 2010.
The then health minister, Shatrughan Sinha, accused Gates of "spreading panic."
But last month another report by the Washington-based Population Reference Bureau (PRB) and the Population Foundation of India (PFI) said India could see an AIDS epidemic similar to that in some African countries where the disease is the leading cause of death.
A.R. Nanda from the PFI said awareness levels of HIV/AIDS in rural areas of were low.
The study said that while 90 percent people living in urban areas knew about HIV/AIDS, more than a quarter in rural areas had never even heard of the disease.
At least 85 percent of India's billion-plus people population lives in villages and small towns.
But Kenneth Wind-Andersen, India country director for UNAIDS, said India was doing as much as it could to battle AIDS with the resources available.
"Some of these predictions (of high levels of AIDS cases) are based on a situation where nothing is being done, but India is doing what it can," he said.
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