TV stars, celebrity doctors and journalists including Amanda Mealing, Sarah Kawood and Grazia Editor Jane Bruton have signed a keynote petition for Save the Children calling for world leaders to ensure four million children’s lives are saved at a major summit in June. Many household names including Sarah Beeney have also tweeted their support for the campaign.

Explaining why she's supporting the campaign, TV presenter Sarah Kawood said,

"Signing Save the Children’s vaccine petition isn’t just adding your name to a list – it's about letting world leaders know it's not OK that millions of children still die when a single injection could help them live. Please do your bit and join Save the Children’s online petition to world leaders asking them to commit funds at the vaccine summit and help save four million young lives."

@SarahBeeney tweeted "World leaders have four hours to save four million children’s lives. Pls sign the petition & http://bit.ly/lQIjV5 @savechildrenuk"">#PassItOn http://bit.ly/lQIjV5 @savechildrenuk"

The UK government will host the four hour summit in London aimed at rallying international funds to pay for vaccinations for the poorest children across the globe. Currently there is a shortfall of just over two billion pounds in the global immunisation fund. If the cash isn't forthcoming, the global vaccination drive will stall and new cutting edge vaccines for common childhood killers like pneumonia will not be rolled out, causing many more needless child deaths. Still today, one in five children worldwide receives no vaccines at all.

17,000 people have already signed the petition, but Save the Children CEO Justin Forsyth hopes many more households across the UK will feel compelled to add their name;

“Millions of the poorest children in the world die every year from diseases we know how to treat, simply because they don't have access to vaccinations we take for granted here in the UK.

“Signing the petition is such a simple and easy thing to do – you don’t even need to leave your home. But the more people that sign the petition, tweet about it and add links to their facebook page, the more likely it is that world leaders will listen.”

Shortly before the June vaccination Summit, a party of influential bloggers, celebrities and activists will deliver the petition to Downing Street. Thousands have already given their name, but time is running out.

Immunisations in numbers

- A comprehensive package of new and existing vaccines could save the lives of 2 million children by 2015

- A child can be vaccinated against five deadly diseases for less than £5

- Vaccines already save about 7,000 lives every day