David Cameron has made an impassioned defence of increased spending on international aid, arguing that British people have a "moral" duty to help save children in the poorest nations from "entirely preventable" deaths.
Writing in today's Observer ahead of a London conference of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi), the prime minister accepts that the decision to raise overseas aid spending at a time of domestic austerity is highly controversial. But taking on "aid sceptics" in his own party, including the defence secretary, Liam Fox, Cameron makes clear that he will not allow the deficit to be used as an excuse to duck out of obligations to the most needy across the world.
The Tory leader, who will host the summit, will pledge to raise the UK's financial support for Gavi. The funding will allow wider distribution of two vaccines, against pneumococcal and rotavirus infections, to tackle the two biggest killers of children in the developing world: pneumonia and diarrhoea.
The Observer -Also see Genocide by Vaccine