During one of the biggest tuberculosis epidemics in the history of the United States, two individuals have died and at least 146 more have contracted the potentially lethal respiratory disease in Kansas.
The Kansas Department of Public Health revealed on Friday that there were at least 67 active tuberculosis cases in Kansas, including 60 in Wyandotte County and seven in Johnson County.
Wyandotte County contains Kansas City, which is the county seat, as well as communities to the west of Kansas City. Johnson County is located directly south of Wyandotte County and is next to it.
According to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, tuberculosis (TB) is a bacterium that mostly affects the lungs, although it can also affect other regions of the body. There are two varieties of TB: active and inactive.
Active tuberculosis (TB) causes people to feel unwell and can be transmitted to others, but inactive TB does not cause people to feel sick and cannot be transmitted to others.
Tuberculosis (TB) is usually conveyed through the air when an infected person coughs, speaks, or sings. However, it can also be transmitted from one person to another by direct contact.
Antibiotics can be used to treat tuberculosis (TB) and prevent the active form of the disease from becoming contagious shortly after starting therapy.
On Tuesday, Jill Bronaugh, the communications director for the Kansas Health Department, stated that the outbreak began in 2024 and resulted in the deaths of two people.
As of Friday, Bronaugh stated that at least 67 persons in Kansas were receiving treatment for active tuberculosis (TB). Those who have been diagnosed with inactive TB are also receiving therapy.
If dormant cases of tuberculosis (TB) are not treated, there is a possibility that 5% to 10% of them will evolve into active TB.
Dr. Dana Hawkinson, the director of prevention and control at the University of Kansas Health System, stated that while it is customary to see some instances of tuberculosis (TB) each year, the current epidemic has far above the usual number of cases.
The majority of people who have been diagnosed with tuberculosis during the current outbreak have not been particularly sick, although a few have experienced severe symptoms.
According to the Kansas Health Department, this outbreak is the biggest one that has occurred since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began monitoring and tracking cases in the 1950s.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated that this is not true and pointed to a tuberculosis outbreak in homeless shelters in Georgia that occurred between 2015 and 2017.
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More than 170 people were infected with active tuberculosis, and more than 400 people were infected with latent tuberculosis.
In 2021, 113 persons across the country were infected with active tuberculosis (TB) after being exposed to a bone transplant product during surgery.
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In October, the World Health Organization announced that over 8 million people throughout the globe were diagnosed with tuberculosis in 2023.
After COVID-19 was the deadliest illness in the world for a short time during the worldwide pandemic, the sickness that killed 1.25 million people became the deadliest disease in the world.
