There is a vaccine aimed at preventing TB called Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), but it’s not commonly used in the U.S., according to the CDC. However, many people born outside the U.S. have gotten the vaccine.

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.

Scientists have discovered three powerful new drug regimens that offer more effective treatment for tuberculosis—bringing fresh hope to millions worldwide.

The endTB trial is one of four recent randomized controlled trials testing new, shorter, and less toxic treatment regimens for drug-resistant TB. The trials are using two fairly new drugs— bedaquiline and delamanid. The medicines were first brought to the market in 2012 and 2013 and were the first new medications for TB in almost 50 years.

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.

Tuberculosis spreads through germs released when a person with TB in their lungs coughs, speaks or sings. These bacteria can stay in the air for prolonged periods of time and are more likely to spread to other people indoors and in poorly-ventilated spaces.

The largest tuberculosis outbreak in the U.S. occurred from 2015 through 2017 at a homeless shelter in Georgia, which was responsible for more than 170 active cases and more than 400 latent cases, according to the CDC, which began tracking TB cases in the 1950s.

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

An outbreak of the infectious lung disease TB in Kansas is one of the largest ever recorded in the US. As of January 24, Wyandotte and Johnson counties in Kansas had reported 67 active cases of TB. The US outbreak began in 2024,

Health officials in this U.S. state are reporting the largest tuberculosis outbreak in American history. Here's what to know about this lung disease.

As of Jan. 24, 67 active cases of tuberculosis, or TB, had been reported in Wyandotte and Johnson counties in Kansas. The outbreak began last year, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment said on its website. It did not specify a source of the outbreak.