Kansas Reports a Significant Outbreak of Tuberculosis

Kansas Reports a Significant Outbreak of Tuberculosis

I have been following the rise in cases of the respiratory disease tuberculosis (i.e., “TB”) for some time.  Last year, an incident involving an illegal Chinese immigrant with a rare form of tuberculosis sparked concern and legal action in Louisiana.

Then, approximately 200 students and staff members at a Georgia high school underwent tuberculosis testing after a possible exposure on campus.

Now, Kansas is currently experiencing a significant TB outbreak, primarily centered in the Kansas City area. The outbreak began early last year. At this point, there are 67 active TB cases, with 60 in 2 urban areas in the eastern part of the state. Additionally, at least 79 cases of latent TB infections have been reported.

The infections have resulted in 2 deaths already.

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 respond 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.

How is the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) responding? By refuting claims it was the largest outbreak in US history.

Kansas health officials called the outbreak “the largest documented outbreak in U.S. history” since the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began counting cases in the 1950s.

But a spokesperson for the CDC on Tuesday refuted that claim, noting at least two larger TB outbreaks in recent history. In one, the disease spread through Georgia homeless shelters. Public health workers identified more than 170 active TB cases and more than 400 latent cases from 2015 to 2017. And in 2021, a nationwide outbreak linked to contaminated tissue used in bone transplants sickened 113 patients.

How about striving for no cases? The recent trends have been disturbing. According to the latest data the agency, 9,615 tuberculosis (TB) cases were reported in the United States in 2023.  This represents a significant increase from previous years:

• It’s a 16% increase from the 8,320 cases reported in 2022.
• It’s the highest number of TB cases reported since 2013.
• The TB incidence rate increased to 2.9 cases per 100,000 persons in 2023, up from 2.5 per 100,000 in 2022.
• Finally, 76% of cases occurred in non-US-born residents.

This might be a good time to check the status of the CDC and Trump team transitions. Dr. Susan Monarez is now serving as the acting director.Monarez, who previously served as the deputy director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), was appointed to this role by the Trump administration. This appointment marks a departure from the usual practice of selecting acting directors from within the CDC’s ranks of career civil servants.

Monarez is an unconventional pick to serve as the acting head of the CDC. Acting directors have historically been chosen from within the Atlanta-based agency, out of the ranks of career civil servants familiar with the CDC’s wide-ranging work.

Past directors in recent history have been medical doctors, while Monarez has a PhD. An acting director in the 1980s and 90s was also not a medical doctor, though he was a longtime career CDC officia.

Monarez has served in various posts in the federal government over the years. She worked in the White House’s science and technology office under President Obama and at the Department of Homeland Security during the first Trump administration.

It must be noted that Monarez is serving as the acting director, President Trump has nominated former Congressman David Weldon to serve as the permanent CDC director. No date for his confirmation hearing has been set.

As a reminder, Biden did not have to wait for his CDC director to be confirmed. The CDC director position was not subject to Senate confirmation during Biden’s presidency. The requirement for Senate confirmation of the CDC director does not take effect until just this year.

Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.