Tim Klingender, co-owner of Gilmour Pharmacy in Havelock North, pictured in August 2016, opened especially on a Sunday after a gastro outbreak hit the town. Photo / Duncan Brown
Tim Klingender, co-owner of Gilmour Pharmacy in Havelock North, pictured in August 2016, opened especially on a Sunday after a gastro outbreak hit the town. Photo / Duncan Brown
It has been described as the worst outbreak of a waterborne disease in recent New Zealand history, with almost 40% of a North Island town’s resident population struck by gastro.
The cause was identified as the contamination of the town’s drinking water supply with sheep faeces after heavy rainfall.
Adecade later, new data has been released from a telephone survey of some of Havelock North’s population, carried out shortly after the town was hit with a waterborne campylobacter outbreak in August 2016.
The findings have been revealed in the New Zealand Medical Journal today in an article titled “Insights into a large waterborne campylobacter outbreak from a cross-sectional telephone survey”.
A Hastings District Council water tanker with free water on Campbell St, Havelock North, after a gastro outbreak in Havelock North in 2016. Photo / Duncan Brown
The authors say the aim is to understand the impacts and responses of households during and after the outbreak, which resulted in 953 notified campylobacter cases and four deaths.
A series of landline telephone surveys taken during and after the outbreak revealed an estimated 5540 people among the 14,118 residents of Havelock North were struck down. Another 2230 illnesses were reported in people outside the town.
One of the authors of the paper is Dr Brent Gilpin, a leader in the environmental science team based at PHF Science’s Christchurch Science Centre.
He said involving the community in the survey revealed things that would otherwise not have been picked up in the notified cases.
“People who end up as a notified case are only those who actually had a faecal sample taken and tested.
“And there’s a range of reasons why people don’t [get that done], so you really underestimate why that’s going on.”
More people sought help from pharmacists
Gilpin said local health authorities contacted every person over the age of 70 to see if they needed help. Those sick became notified cases.
“Whereas from the telephone survey, it was actually younger people who were more affected than older people, which is really an important finding for understanding what the burden is, who might need support and what is happening.”
Tim Klingender, from Gilmour Pharmacy, with some of the products that were in demand after the campylobacter outbreak. Photo / Duncan Brown
The article also highlighted the role pharmacists and chemists played within the community, with 72% of households with diarrhoea reporting they spent money at a pharmacy because of the outbreak, with fewer than half of those engaging with other medical care.
Households spent an average of $58 at pharmacies, according to the report.
“This suggests that pharmacy-based surveillance could detect twice as many cases as may be possible via disease notification,” the report said.
“The ease of access and lower cost relative to GPs increases the potential for sick individuals to visit pharmacies.”
Gilpin said that’s possibly become more of a trend as it’s now harder for people to get in to see their GP.
As a result, experts may look at how to make better use of pharmacies in an outbreak for surveillance and for providing additional support to affected members of the public.
Gilpin acknowledged 2026 is the 10th anniversary of the outbreak and understanding what happened is the only way to prevent it from occurring again.
“There are a number of aspects of this that are as relevant to any water-borne outbreak today and what people might need to know about avoiding campylobacter.
“There’s that saying: ‘Those who don’t learn from history are bound to repeat it again’.”
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