A Year-Long Outbreak of Tuberculosis in Kansas City, Kansas Aims to Wane
A year-long outbreak of tuberculosis in the Kansas City, Kansas area has taken local health experts by surprise. According to Dr. Dana Hawkinson, an infectious disease doctor at the University of Kansas Health System, the high case counts in this outbreak are a “stark warning.” So far, the outbreak has killed two people since it started in January 2024.
In this outbreak, 67 people are being treated for active TB, most of them in Wyandotte County, with another 79 having latent TB. Although the situation is improving, according to Ashley Goss, deputy secretary at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, local health officials have not ruled out the possibility of further cases.
Contrary to state health officials’ claims, this outbreak is not the largest in U.S. history. A spokesperson for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pointed out that there were two larger TB outbreaks in recent history, including a 2015-2017 outbreak linked to Georgia homeless shelters and a 2021 nationwide outbreak linked to contaminated tissue used in bone transplants.
TB is caused by bacteria that live in the lungs and spreads through the air when a person talks, coughs, or sings. The infection can take two forms: active TB, which causes symptoms such as a long-standing cough and night sweats, and latent TB, which hibernates in the lungs or elsewhere in the body without causing symptoms. About a quarter of the global population is estimated to have TB, but only about 5-10% of those develop symptoms.
TB is a significant public health concern worldwide, responsible for 1.25 million deaths globally in 2023 alone. In the U.S., there were over 9,600 cases in 2023, the highest count in a decade. While the Kansas outbreak is concerning, health officials do not see a threat to the general public.