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,

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.

More than 60 people were being treated in the Kansas City area as of Friday, according to the state health department.

A wave of tuberculosis cases hitting the Kansas City, Kansas, metro area has become the largest documented TB outbreak in the United States since monitoring began in the 1950s, according to the state health department.

Kansas is currently facing one the largest tuberculosis outbreaks in U.S. history with 67 confirmed active cases and 79 confirmed latent cases.

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.

A tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas City has become one of the largest recorded in the U.S. With 67 active cases and 79 latent infections since 2024, health officials are racing to contain the disease.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment said it should be noted that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first began monitoring and reporting cases in 1950.

In a statement to ABC News, a CDC spokesperson said the outbreak is among the largest in U.S. history, but not the largest. The outbreaks in 2015 in a homeless shelter and 2021 related to contaminated bone graft surgery were larger, according to the CDC, which has dispatched a team to help with the ongoing outbreak.