The Meningitis Foundation says it warned Te Whatu Ora about a shortage of vaccines last week but was assured it wasn't a problem.
It comes after a second Canterbury University student was diagnosed with Meningococcal disease - the fourth case in the region this year.
Alastair Holland contracted the infection when he was a first-year university student at Knox College in Otago.
Holland, who is now in his late 30s, told AM he was 18 years old when he got Meningococcal. He said the infection worked extremely quickly and less than 24 hours after he started feeling unwell, he was hospitalised.
Holland went to bed on a Wednesday night feeling well and woke up on Thursday feeling slightly under the weather, but he didn't think it was anything serious.
"I went to the doctor at about midday [on Thursday]. They kept me there for a couple of hours and said, 'If anything changes you must come back'," he told AM's Melissa Chan-Green.
"That evening at dinnertime, I noticed a couple of spots from the rash on my arm. Very quickly, I was covered, probably within a quarter of an hour.
"The second time I went to the doctor, everything happened very quickly. From there, I was in an ambulance and quickly to the ED, which was the only place for me.
Holland said he was incredibly lucky to survive the deadly infection and is calling for more awareness about its symptoms and seriousness.
"The first guy I saw, I met him afterwards said, 'Go and buy a lotto ticket'.
"This is vaccine-preventable and you've got to get vaccinated. The quicker those can get into the system and people get them, the better."
He urged all students to get vaccinated and look out for their friends.
"If you think something's not right because you just feel it's off, don't mess around with it because it's serious business. "
The Meningitis Foundation has been campaigning for better access to vaccines for students for some time. But chair Gerard Rushton told AM a shortage of vaccines is exacerbating the outbreak in Canterbury.
"We managed to get some vaccines into Canterbury University at 3pm yesterday. But we made Health New Zealand aware of this a week ago that there were vaccine supply issues. They assured us there wasn't," he told Chan-Green.
Rushton said despite the assurances, universities are experiencing shortages and in some cases have no vaccines available at all.
"Last Thursday we had a meeting with them [Te Whatu Ora] and they assured us there were no supply issues. But talking to both the universities in the Canterbury region yesterday, both the welfare officers were experiencing shortages and in some cases had no vaccines to vaccinate their students, so this is a real concern."
Rushton said along with fixing the supply issues, the vaccination program needs to be widened so more people have access to it.
"We need to make sure we're still pushing to protect all our 13 to 25-year-olds. At the moment [the vaccine] is only available to those that attend boarding schools, halls of residence and barracks and prisons.
"In the last 12 months, we've had a 72 percent increase in cases of meningitis and 70 percent of those people are Māori and Pasifika. So a lot of those Māori and Pacific are actually discriminated against in this policy as well. So they miss out. So we are still pushing to widen that to everyone," he said.
From March 1, the meningococcal B vaccine was funded for several key demographics including babies under 12 months, and people between 13 and 25, in their first year living in a boarding school, hall of residence, military barracks or corrections facility.
A free catch-up program was also funded, but for people not in the group the vaccine costs around $150 per dose.
Symptoms of meningococcal include fever and chills, fatigue, vomiting, cold hands and feet, severe aches or pain in the muscles, rapid breathing, diarrhoea and in the later stages, a dark purple rash.
Anyone who notices symptoms of the disease should contact their doctor immediately.
Te Whatu Ora has been contacted for comment.
