The campaign, authorities stress, will target women and children, the most vulnerable group in this city.

According to an AIDS surveillance report released by the Mumbai District AIDS Control Society (MDACS) Tuesday, 2,859 of the 11,247 or 26 percent of those infected by AIDS in this city are women. And officials here suspect that the actual number of women suffering from the disease is be much, much more considering the city's floating population.

NGOs say as many as 40 percent of the sex workers in the city may be infected, though no reliable figures are available considering the clandestine nature of the trade.

Earlier, only 10 percent of total AIDS patients in the city were women. With a large number of smaller hospitals referring suspected AIDS cases to Mumbai's JJ Hospital, as many as six percent of all the pregnant women admitted here tested positive.

The new AIDS campaign featuring a cartoon character Balbir Pasha to educate people about the disease is back on Mumbai's billboards. These campaigns will target women since most of them contract the disease involuntarily.

State government officials say meetings, rallies, seminars, brain-storming sessions will be held across Maharashtra to increase awareness about the disease.

In Mumbai, the city's civic body Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation will organise painting exhibitions and seminars to educate people about AIDS. Shows are also being put up at major railway stations in the city.

Statistics put out by the state government indicate that AIDS is passed through sexual relations in 87 percent of the cases. Only three percent transmission is through sharing infected needles, two percent through blood or blood products, three percent from child to mothers. Six percent of the patients say they are unaware as to how they contracted the disease.

--Indo-Asian News Service