KANSAS CITY, Mo. — An ongoing tuberculosis outbreak in the Kansas City area is now the "largest documented outbreak in U.S. history," Kansas health officials said Monday.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment said 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 since 1950.
Latent TB infection cases means people are infected with TB bacteria, but they 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 KSHB 41 in an email.
KDHE 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.
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