The United States will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to bolster the national response to bird flu, the outgoing administration of President Joe Biden announced Friday, days before Donald Trump's inauguration.
The $306 million in funding will support national, state and local preparedness and surveillance programs, as well as medical research against the H5N1 virus.
"Although the risk to humans is low, we are always preparing for all possible scenarios," US Secretary of Health Xavier Becerra said in a statement.
“Preparedness is the key to keeping Americans healthy and our country safe,” he added.
The United States has detected 66 human cases of bird flu since the start of 2024, and more may have gone unnoticed, officials say.
No spread of the disease from person to person has been observed, but the level of circulation of the virus worries researchers.
The risk is that it will mix with seasonal flu, potentially triggering a deadly pandemic like those of 1918 and 2009.
The announcement comes as concerns are growing about how the Trump administration will handle the threat.
The president-elect told Time magazine in April that he would eliminate the White House office tasked with preparing for the next pandemic, established under Joe Biden's administration — though it's unclear whether he could do so, given that the body was created by Congress.
His choice for health minister, Robert Kennedy Jr., is notoriously skeptical of vaccines and has promised to reform health agencies.
Mr Kennedy Jr also promoted raw milk, which is considered a vector for bird flu.
The Biden administration has also faced criticism for its response to bird flu, which some have called inadequate.
In a report published in December, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research institute based in Washington, had notably criticized the "incomplete surveillance" and the "slow coordination" of the authorities.
Another source of concern: the bird flu virus may have mutated in the body of an American patient to adapt to the human respiratory tract, American health authorities announced at the end of December.
Health authorities are also closely monitoring the increase in cases of bird flu among felines, which could put their owners at "risk" of contracting the disease through close contact.
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