Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has confirmed the Government was offered 30,000 more vaccines to help with the Northland meningitis outbreak in 2018 - but did not take it.

Pfizer's Anne Harris confirmed at the Health Select Committee on Wednesday that it offered the additional vaccines to the Ministry of Health in November last year, despite the ministry only purchasing 20,000 from another supplier.

"We proactively contacted the ministry because we had seen media reports of meningococcal cases in Northland," Harris, Pfizer's Australia and New Zealand vaccines commercial lead, said.

"In our experience, we know that often one of the most important response plans is rapid access to vaccines, and really, we were reaching out to see how we could assist in that programme."

Harris said the company felt that if the ministry needed their doses "they would have got in contact with us". She said Pfizer made it clear that the supply situation could "change rapidly".

Harris appeared at the select committee after National's Associate Health spokesperson and MP for Whangarei, Dr Shane Reti, called for an inquiry into the Northland meningococcal outbreak.

There were seven cases of Meningitis W in Northland last year and the outbreak was declared on 8 November. One teenager died from the disease in October.

A selective vaccination campaign was rolled out from December 2018 to April 2019 by the Northland District Health Board (DHB) in which 5 to 12-year-olds were excluded.