DHAKA, Dec 18 (AFP) - At least 310 Bangladeshi children are suffering from HIV, the virus which causes AIDS, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said here Wednesday.

UNICEF in a report called "State of the Children Report 2003" released here this week, said another 2,100 children had been orphaned by the disease.

"Generally children get the disease from their mother during pregnancy, but we still do not have any specific source for these 310 children," UNICEF spokeswoman in Dhaka, Zafrin Chowdhury, told AFP.

"We consider children orphaned by AIDS when either their mother or father dies from the disease," she said.

Earlier this month Bangladesh released official figures which said 248 people in Bangladesh have contracted HIV, while 20 have died of AIDS so far.

But UNICEF puts the number of HIV patients at about 13,000.

The government is planning a law "to stop the spread of the fatal disease," health officials said.

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