CENTER FOR COMMUNITY MEDICINE AIIMS

"AIDS Education & Training Cell" was established at Center for Community Medicine in November 1998. This cell is in continuation of the erstwhile NGO-AIDS cell which has ceased to exit w.e.f. September-October 1998.

"AIDS Education & Training Cell" works in the areas of HIV/AIDS prevention, education, training and counselling.

Dr. Bir Singh, Additional Professor of Community Medicine is the Co-ordinator of this Cell.

This Cell runs a Telephonic Helpline called "Shubhchintak" (Phone No. 91-11- 265 88 333) which works from 10AM to 5PM on all working days and answers queries of the clients about HIV/AIDS, sexuality issues and problems and family-life education. This service came into force from December 1, i.e. World AIDS Day, 1998.

Apart from the telephonic AIDS helpline “Shubhchintak”, the AETC also launched an internet based helpline AIDS “e-Shubhchintak”.

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The Experience of the AIDS Helpline of AIIMS New Delhi

The AIIMS experiene In November 1998, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi established an AIDS Education & Training Cell to create awareness about HIV/AIDS in the General Public. On of the schemes Iaunched to achieve this foal was a free telephone help line called `Shubhchintak' (`well-wisher' in Hindi). This hep line launched on December 1998 has answered the queries of many callers. `Shubhchintak' works from 10:00am to 5:00pm on all working days from Monday to Friday and on Saturdays from 10:00am to 1:00pm. All calls are handled by person with counselling skills. The hame, age, gender, address, phone number or any other identification of the caller is not asked for so that the caller remains totally anonymous and can ask any type of question without fear or anxiety. The significant difference between this help line and others is that it is interactive and caters to the specific personal problems of the callers.On an average `Shubhchintak' recives about 32 calls per day. However, whenever a writ-up appears in the press or an announcement is made on All India Radio, the number of calls go up on that day and a few days thereafter. It is found that 87.9% of the callers are males while 12.1% are females. Though we cannot comment on the age of the callers, they seemed to by young persons (approximately 15-30 years age group). Some of the questions asked by the calllers:

There were also questions regarding the blood test for HIV (such as when and where it could be done, cost of the test, time taken for reporting and reliability of FLISAtest;) some of the callers were curious to know whether `oral sec' causes AIDS. Many callers asked about the risk of getting HIV/AIDS quoting personal experiences and problems. The AIIMS experience points out that given an opportunity the grneral punblic, especially young people, want to know about HIV/AIDS and opportunityes nedd to be created to address these queries in a scientific and cost effective manner. In this situation interactive help line have an Important role to play. (Dr Bir Singh, Additional Professor & Dr V.P. Reddaiah, Professor & Head, Centre for Community Midicine, AIIMS, New Delhi)

(Health Dialogue Issue No. 16. June 1999).

DR.  BIR  SINGH

Dr. Bir Singh, was born on 05 January 1956 . He completed his MBBS (1978) and M.D. (Community Medicine, 1984) – both from All India Institute of Medical Sciences. He currently is a Faculty Member at AIIMS as Additional Professor in Community Medicine. He also heads the AIDS Education & Training Cell of AIIMS as its Coordinator and is also the Faculty Incharge of Sex and Marriage counseling at AIIMS Hospital.

Besides being a Community Health (Public Health) expert, his areas of interest are HIV/ AIDS Prevention; Health of Mothers and Children (Reproductive & Child Health); Counselling (Family Welfare; Sex & marriage) and Health Education. He has provided consultancies to many national & International organisations.

A prolific writer in English and Hindi, Dr. Bir Singh – apart from having 40 scientific articles & research papers in national and international medical journals – has also authored 19 books & booklets on health topics; more than 110 columns and  articles on health in leading magazines and newspapers. He also has been a regular presenter of health programmes on Radio and T.V. with close to 200 programmes to his credit.  Through the AIDS Education & Training Cell, Dr. Bir Singh operates a popular telephonic aids Helpline “Shubhchintak” (Phone No.011-265 88 333) as well as its  internet based AIDSHelpline “e-Shubhchintak" at www.aiims.edu

His active contribution to his areas of interest has resulted in conferring of 3 National Awards of him in last 7 years apart from the Fellowship of Indian Association of Preventive & Social Medicine.He is also a member of or on the executive councils of many professional bodies as well as on editorial boards of some reputed journals.

E-mail address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Free Books available from : AIDS Education & Training Cell

How to get a copy of the books available FREE Of COST ?:

All these books are mainly targetted for the general public ( Youth, Parents, Students, Teachers , NGO Workers and Health Care workers) . These are not text books. These have got limited usefulness for Medical Doctors but are quite useful for Paramedicals and General public.

Bulk copies( Minimum Order : 50 copies) of ALL these books can be had DIRECTLY from the printer at the printing cost of the books. We can help in that process. The payment has to be made DIRECTLY to the printer by a cheque paid in advance. For details about the printer, cost etc., please contact the by E mail: ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or at phone number 91-011-265 88 333 between 10 AM to 5 PM on working Mondays to Fridays.

Please send your request to :
Dr Bir Singh, Professor,
Centre for Community Medicine,
AIIMS, New Delhi-110029.
Or email to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Please write your complete postal address with PIN code in these requests.