An ongoing tuberculosis outbreak in the Kansas City area is now the "largest documented outbreak in U.S. history," health officials in Kansas said on Monday.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) said it should be noted that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) first began monitoring and reporting TB cases in 1950.
Currently, there are 67 people being treated for TB cases on the Kansas side of the Kansas City area — 60 in Wyandotte County and seven others in Johnson County.
There are also 79 confirmed latent TB cases — 77 in Wyandotte County and two in Johnson County. These mark the largest outbreak since 1950.
RELATED STORY | Tuberculosis surpasses COVID-19 as deadliest infectious disease, World Health Organization says
Latent TB infection cases mean people are infected with TB bacteria but don't have TB disease, according to the CDC.
"This outbreak is still ongoing, which means that there could be more cases," Jill Bronaugh, communications director for KDHE, told Scripps News Kansas City in an email.
Health officials have been monitoring the outbreak for several years, Ashley Goss, KDHE’s deputy secretary of Public Health, told the Kansas Senate Committee on Public Health and Welfare on Jan. 21.
TB is an infectious disease that most often affects the lungs and is caused by a type of bacteria. It spreads through the air when infected people cough, speak, or sing, KDHE said.
The current outbreak can be tracked on KDHE’s website here.
KDHE said it’s working with and following the guidance of the CDC.
This story was originally published by Sam Hartle and David Medina at Scripps News Kansas City.
