A yearlong outbreak of tuberculosis in the Kansas City, Kansas area has taken local experts aback, even if it does not appear to be the largest outbreak of the disease in U.S. history as a state health official claimed last week.

An outbreak of tuberculosis in the Kansas City area has grown into one of the largest ever recorded in the United States, with dozens of active cases of the infectious disease reported, according to health officials.

Common symptoms of active TB include coughing, chest pains, fever, fatigue and coughing up blood or phlegm. The airborne respiratory illness is usually transmitted during prolonged close contact with an infected person.

The Kansas City area is facing one of the country’s largest outbreaks of tuberculosis in recent years. According to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, as of Jan. 24, there have been 67 confirmed cases of active TB in the state,

In late January 2025, news outlets reported on an outbreak of tuberculosis (TB) in the Kansas City, Kansas, area. According to several of these reports, and posts sharing the news on social media, the outbreak was "unprecedented,

However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention clarified the Kansas outbreak isn’t the largest in modern history. Outbreaks between 2015 and 2017, in Georgia homeless shelters, and a 2021 nationwide outbreak resulting from patients infected from contaminated bone grafts have been larger, the federal agency said in an email.

Kansas is experiencing record-high tuberculosis cases in two counties. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment and a TB expert weigh in on the public risk.

State and local public health officials in Kansas are responding to a tuberculosis (TB) outbreak in the Kansas City area, where approximately 70 patients are being treated for active disease, according to a press release from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment’s (KDHE’s) Division of Public Health.

The map of flu activity across the United States continues to darken, both figuratively and literally, as case numbers spike upward in most states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and

Again, in this report the newspaper attempts to spin & downplay the public health threat . . .

Two counties in the Kansas City area continue to grapple with what is now a yearlong outbreak of tuberculosis.