The logo has appeared on flags displayed by community groups taking part in the National AIDS Conference in Bangkok this week.

"The logo fails to convey any meaning," an indignant Doctor Sombat Tanprasertsuk of the Diseases Control Department told The Nation newspaper.

"There is only one message people would get: that community workers are obsessed with sex."

The logo is a send-up of the official symbol for the July 11-16 2004 World Aids Conference, which features three elephants -- male, female and baby -- standing side by side with their trunks upraised.

But Sombat indicated he saw the funny side of the incident, quipping that the alternative logo could not even be described as educational because "it doesn't show the male elephant wearing a condom at all."

Community groups displaying the flags at the AIDS conference said they were design to create fun and attract attention to their programmes at next year's world symposium.

Chumpol Apisuk, a member of the conference's community committee said the official logo was "dull."

"I don't see any obscenity in our logo. We have the same kind of images on several temple walls," he told The Nation.

Elephants are revered in Thai culture as symbols of wisdom, strength and longevity.

TERRA.WIRE