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U.S.|Kansas Is Dealing With Major Tuberculosis Outbreak
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/28/us/tuberculosis-outbreak-kansas.html
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State health officials said that dozens of people in the Kansas City, Kan., area have the disease, which has drawn a federal response.
Jan. 28, 2025, 6:49 p.m. ET
Kansas is grappling with what state health officials say is one of the largest tuberculosis outbreaks there since the 1950s, one that has infected dozens of people.
The epicenter of the outbreak, which began last January and was blamed for two deaths in 2024, is in Wyandotte and Johnson Counties, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. Both are part of the Kansas City, Kan., metropolitan area in the eastern part of the state.
It is unclear what caused the outbreak, and state health officials did not immediately to questions about the origin.
While the state’s health agency described the risk to the general public as “very low,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had four employees on site in Kansas as of Tuesday to help with contact investigation, testing and screening, a spokeswoman for the center said in an email. The team was also coordinating with community leaders to educate the public about tuberculosis, an infectious disease that is caused by bacteria and most often affects the lungs.
“This outbreak is still ongoing, which means that there could be more cases,” Jill Bronaugh, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, wrote in an email on Tuesday.
Briefly overtaken by the coronavirus as the world’s deadliest infectious disease during the pandemic, tuberculosis reclaimed that grim distinction in 2023, when it took 1.25 million lives, according to the World Health Organization. The disease, which is curable, spreads through the air when infected people cough, sneeze or spit. Without treatment, which usually involves antibiotics, tuberculosis can be fatal. Symptoms can include a prolonged cough, fever and unexplained weight loss.
