The Johnson County Department of Health and Environment (JCDHE) says all TB patients in the county have completed treatment and are not infectious

Health officials in Johnson County provided an update Wednesday on tuberculosis cases connected to an ongoing outbreak that started in March 2024.

A yearlong outbreak of tuberculosis in the Kansas City, Kansas area has taken local experts aback, even if it does not appear to be the largest outbreak of the disease in U.S. history as a state health official claimed last week.

Kansas health officials are tackling the largest tuberculosis outbreak in US history, with 67 confirmed cases since the start of 2025.

A tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas has killed two people and caused at least 146 to become infected with the potentially deadly respiratory disease during one of the largest outbreaks in the nation's history.

You don’t need to have the vaccine to attend colleges in Kansas, but some do require you to get tested for tuberculosis before enrolling and going to classes on campus, like at the University of Kansas.

The outbreak started last January. Kansas health officials say numbers are trending downward, but they still expect to find more cases.

“While TB cases in Wyandotte and Johnson counties are getting attention, we want to assure our residents that what we’re seeing in Saline County is normal,” said Jason Tiller, Saline County Health Officer. “There is no immediate reason for concern. TB is preventable, treatable, and does not pose a general risk to the public.”

Submitted Despite an ongoing tuberculosis (TB) outbreak in Wyandotte and Johnson counties, health officials say there is no indication of increased TB cases in Saline County.

“Things like influenza, SARS-CoV-2 and those common cough and cold viruses they are still at fairly high levels in the United States. You are at significantly more at risk of getting one of those infections than you are tuberculosis,” Hawkinson said.

Again, in this report the newspaper attempts to spin & downplay the public health threat . . .