Czech Republic denies making contribution to Libyan HIV fund

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has denied that the Czech Republic is one of the countries that has contributed to an international fund to support hundreds of children who contracted HIV at a hospital in the Libyan city of Benghazi during the 1990s. Earlier on Saturday, the Libyan prime minister publicly thanked the Czech Republic, Qatar and Bulgaria for their contributions to the fund.

The Benghazi International Fund has already given one million US dollars to the families of each infected child under a deal to secure a pardon for six foreign medics who were jailed in Libya for eight years on charges of deliberately contaminating the children. The fund will also finance the medical treatment of the children and a series of improvements to the Libyan healthcare system.