Fortunately, they say the health risk remains very low.
Ashley Goss , Kansas’ deputy secretary for public health, called the outbreak “unprecedented” but told lawmakers last week that the number of infections is “trending in the right direction.”
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment currently reports 67 active infections of the highly contagious respiratory disease since 2024 and 79 latent infections, meaning patients are asymptomatic and cannot pass TB to others.
Sixty of the active infections have been identified in Wyandotte County and the other seven in Johnson County .
“The current Kansas City, Kan. Metro tuberculosis outbreak is the largest documented outbreak in U.S. history, presently (since the 1950s, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention started monitoring and reporting TB cases,” said Jill Bronaugh , a KDHE spokesperson. She said the agency reported 79 active TB cases, 213 latent cases and two TB deaths associated with the outbreak in the metro area last year.
Goss told members of the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee that the number of active infections has dwindled to 32. Patients are being treated by their local health departments, and the CDC has played an active role in testing, she said.
“That’s not a negative. This is normal,” Goss said. “When there is something unprecedented or a large outbreak of any kind, they will come and lend resources to us to help get a stop to that.”
According to preliminary data from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services , there have been 87 confirmed TB cases across the state since Jan. 1, 2024 . Thirty-three of those recorded cases are in northwest Missouri , which includes but is not limited to the Kansas City -metro area.
Symptoms and Safety Measures
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.
Kansans who believe they may have been infected are asked to call the KDHE hotline at 877-427-7317. Patients who test positive will receive further free testing to determine whether their infection is active or latent, and local health departments will work with them to identify their close contacts.
“Generally, if an active person takes ten consecutive days of meds, then they have to have three sputum tests,” Goss said. “A lot of times, they will then be then non-transmissable. Not always.”
When it is determined that a patient’s infection is non-transmissible, they can go back to work and spend time around family without fear of transmitting the disease — as long as they keep taking their medication, Goss said.
In September, Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas , commissioners approved a $1 million plan to use leftover COVID-19 funds to help prevent the spread of the disease, in part by advising schools and employers on cautionary measures. A spokesperson for the Wyandotte County Health Department referred questions to KDHE.
According to the World Health Organization , an estimated nine million people get TB every year and 1.25 million people died in 2023 after contracting it.
At the turn of the 20th century, TB was the leading cause of death in the U.S. , according to the American Lung Association . However, thanks to medical advances, the TB is nowhere near as deadly as it used to be.
Now, 95 percent of cases occur in developing countries in Africa , Asia and Latin America , WHO reports.
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