Avian flu was not easy to predict. The federal government was faced with an emerging risk, and they decided to move quickly to acquire doses for at-risk individuals, such as farmers and veterinarians, without having conducted much of an analysis as to how much was really needed. They purchased 500,000 doses, and a small portion of those were being used. There was not that much uptake.
Before they were ready to purchase more doses, they did complete a more detailed analysis. They determined that they only needed 300,000 doses in total, yet they purchased another 370,000 on top of the 500,000 that had already been purchased. They had an extreme oversupply. When those doses expired just two months ago, 95% had gone unused.