DHAKA, Dec 15 (AFP) - An international disease research centre in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka has expanded operations to include HIV/AIDS, officials said Monday.

Bangladesh has only 363 registered AIDS patients, but 115 of those were reported in the past 12 months, according to the latest figures.

Div Sack, director of the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research Bangladesh, told reporters: "We are now also dealing with several other common diseases like dengue, malaria ... and HIV/AIDS."

Azad Khan, a trustee for the centre, which was marking its 25th anniversary as an international organisation, added: "It is now a centre for health research."

Ishtiaque Zaman, who also works at centre, said an Oral Rehydration Solution (ORS) developed by the centre had saved 40 million children suffering from diarrhoea over the past two decades.

Some 20,000 people have been treated free of cost at the centre, which has financial support from 55 governments and bodies. It was set up in 1960, but became an international organisation in 1978.

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