Somesh (name changed on request) is a regular at spas in Delhi-NCR. But he’s doesn’t go for the healing therapies. He’s an HIV counsellor and his mission is to reach out to people at high risk and encourage them to get tested. He doesn’t reveal his identity at first. Sometimes he is shut down as soon as he does. Of the 90 people he has befriended and counselled at three spas over eight months, though, seven tested positive for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus.

“It takes three or four visits for the staff to open up. It takes longer for clients,” he says. “I stay in touch with them, build a rapport, and gradually broach the topic of HIV testing.”

It’s not just spas. Anti-HIV activists are penetrating dating sites and open-for-all-parties too, as part of a government-run community-led effort to think out of the box when it comes to the disease.

The friend-counsellor initiative is part of a wider effort by the government’s flagship National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) to counsel people who would otherwise likely not get tested since they don’t consider themselves at risk.

“This is a section that doesn’t consider itself vulnerable but runs the risk of getting infected or infecting others. They are not open to direct counselling and so we had to come up with novel methods,” says a senior health ministry official, requesting anonymity. These high-risk groups include men who have sex with men (MSM), female sex workers (FSW), transgenders (TGs) and members of the open-door dating and party circuits. Read more Hindustan Times