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.

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.

State health officials said that dozens of people in the Kansas City, Kan., area have the disease, which has drawn a federal response.

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

A tuberculosis outbreak that began a year ago in two counties in the Kansas City, Kan., area has caused 67 active cases and 79 latent cases of the disease. Two deaths have been reported. But public health officials say the risk to the public remains low.

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.

Kansas officials are battling an outbreak of tuberculosis. Are Michigan residents at risk of contracting the bacterial disease?

Kansas is currently dealing with a tuberculosis outbreak that is unprecedented in the U.S. What we know about Delaware's infection rates, staying safe