The money has been primarily spent educating and training local people...

What governments from different parts of the world are now beginning to be concious of is that the possibility of a bird flu pandemic is not a national problem but a global problem.  If for example there is an all out human pandemic of bird flu in say Vietnam the United States or the United Kingdom cannot just sit there and hope it’ll go away because the chances are that it shall find its way into their countries to. This is apart from the fact that they can’t exactly just sit there and watch literally thousands of innocent people die from the H5N1 bird flu virus in other countries.

Previously many world governments thought that the World Health Organisation would be able to cope with the problem but they are realising now that this is not really true and that the WHO is just one cog in a big mechanism that is needed to beat the bird flu virus. One country that has been largely unaffected by any incidences of bird flu in poultry or in humans is the United States but they are concious that the problem of a global pandemic is as much theirs as anyone elses.

The United States government has allocated vast sums of money to help beat the bird flu not only in America but in other countries. Recently they opened an office in the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta to support the government there. Indonesia has seen some of the worst bird flu outbreaks not only in poultry but also in humans.

Up till now the United States have given around $25 million to bird flu prevention initiatives in Indonesia and the money has been primarily spent educating and training local people to manage and contain a bird flu pandemic should one occur.

A drug like Tamiflu can be extremely effective in curing people of the bird flu virus however what is definite is that alone the Tamiflu drug will not stop thousands of people dying from the H5N1 Virus, and that controlling the disease by limiting the movement of people and birds and explaining how the disease can spread is almost more important than any drug.