By Sarah Boseley for The Guardian

More than 34 million children’s lives have been saved in the last 15 years at a cost, in the poorest countries, of about $4,000 (£2,500) each, say experts who have compiled a scorecard of donor and government spending on child health.

The US government has saved the largest number of lives of children under the age of five, at 3.3 million. British funding for child health has also had a significant impact, saving 1.7 million lives –slightly more than the 1.5 million lives saved by donations from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The scorecard has been put together by the world’s leading global health data collectors and analysts, the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle, together with the UN secretary general’s special envoy for financing the health millennium development goals (MDGs) and for malaria, Ray Chambers.