East Africa's worsening famine is one of the largest humanitarian crises in decades, a US official said, pledging "significant" aid.
The US already pledged $5m on Friday to help Somali refugees, on top of a previously budgeted $63m.
Reuben Brigety, the deputy assistant secretary responsible for State Department assistance to refugees and conflict victims in Africa, has said Washington is now studying how much more it will give.
"A great nation can do more than one thing at the same time and that is what we, the United States, will continue to do even in the context of the financial challenges that we are facing," Brigety said.
Tens of thousands of Somali refugees are flooding camps in Ethiopia and Kenya - at a rate of more than 3,000 new arrivals per day - in search of food after several seasons without rain killed livestock and destroyed crops in Somalia.
Little help can reach those in the worst-hit area because an al-Qaeda-linked militant group had banned aid work, though it recently said it would lift that ban.
Refugees in Ethiopia, Kenya
Over the last several days, Brigety has visited camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, and talked with mothers and children who walked for days with little food or water.
Levels of malnutrition among refugees arriving at the camps are very high.
The overall mortality rate at the camps in Ethiopia is seven people out of 10,000 per day, when a normal crisis rate is two per day, Brigety said.
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