Kansas tuberculosis outbreak is now America’s largest in recorded history
TOPEKA, Kan. — An ongoing tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas has become the largest in recorded history in the United States, according to a state health department spokesperson.
Earlier this month, state public health officials reported that they documented 66 active cases and 79 latent infections in the Kansas City, Kansas, metro area since 2024. “Currently, Kansas has the largest outbreak that they’ve ever had in history,” Ashley Goss, a deputy secretary at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, told the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee last week.
Jill Bronaugh, a health department spokesperson, confirmed Goss’s statement afterward.
“The current KCK Metro TB outbreak is the largest documented outbreak in U.S. history, presently,” Bronaugh said in a statement to The Capital-Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network. “This is mainly due to the rapid number of cases in the short amount of time. This outbreak is still ongoing, which means that there could be more cases. There are a few other states that currently have large outbreaks that are also ongoing.”
She noted that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention started monitoring and reporting tuberculosis cases in the U.S. in the 1950s.
Tuberculosis is caused by a bacterium that typically affects the lungs, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. People with an active infection feel sick and can spread it to others, while people with a latent infection don’t feel ill and can’t spread it. Tuberculosis is spread person-to-person through the air when a person with an active infection coughs, speaks, or sings. It is treatable with antibiotics.