Tuberculosis: What You Need to Know About the Recent Outbreak, Risk Factors, Symptoms and Treatment

Kansas City has been at the center of an ongoing tuberculosis outbreak, bringing the disease back into the spotlight. Around 67 active cases have been confirmed since the start of 2025, and nearly 400 people are being monitored for exposure. Another case has been identified in a Michigan high school. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 10,347 reported tuberculosis cases in the US in 2024, a 8% increase from 2023. Though the CDC did see a 15.6% increase in 2023 compared to 2022. To put that into perspective, that's an incidence rate of 3 cases per 100,000 people. Tuberculosis is prevalent in the US, but it's both preventable and curable. While early detection and treatment plans have helped limit disease transmission in the US, we have seen numbers creep back up over the last few years. This could be possibly partly due to reduced access to medical care during the coronavirus pandemic. The Kansas outbreak is more prominent than usual, though tha ... Read full article.