Structural changes are needed in the way that the United States delivers its international health assistance, together with a near doubling of resources devoted to this area, to $15bn (£10bn; €11bn) a year by 2012, recommends a study by the Institute of Medicine, the independent adviser to the US government on health.

“We should look at the question of global health as both a responsibility and an opportunity for the United States, for our self interest and for humanitarian reasons as well,” said Thomas Pickering, co-chairman of the …