TRIPOLI, July 28 (Reuters) - The Czech Republic, Qatar and Bulgaria contributed to an international fund to support hundreds of children who contracted HIV at a Libyan hospital in the 1990s, Libya said on Saturday.

"I thank Qatar for its role in the nurses' case. European countries including Bulgaria and the Czech Republic contributed to the fund for the infected children," Libyan Prime Minister al-Baghdadi Ali Al-Mahmoudi told reporters in Tripoli.

"France pledged to equip Benghazi hospital and provide trained personnel for five years. It also agreed to train some 50 Libyan doctors."

The Benghazi International Fund has already given $1 million 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 money came from a $460 million loan due to be repaid as and when donors make resources available, a humanitarian body said on Friday.

In a subsequent deal, the European Union promised closer ties with Libya in exchange for custody of the medics. They were flown this week to Bulgaria where they were immediately pardoned and released by the new EU member country's president.

The fund will also finance the medical treatment of the children and a series of improvements to the Libyan health case system. It has pledges of financial and in-kind contributions for all the goals it is pursuing worth about $477 million.

It says these pledges had come from 31 different sources, including Libya.

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