Kansas City Chiefs game drew lots of travelers. Should you be worried about tuberculosis?
No, you probably didn’t get tuberculosis at Sunday’s Chiefs game.
A yearlong outbreak of the bacterial disease in the Kansas City metropolitan area has raised concerns about spread locally and nationally.
Health officials have said the risk to the public is low from the current tuberculosis, or TB, outbreak among dozens of people in eastern Kansas. However, most people should worry about respiratory viruses that tend to peak at this time of year, said Ginny Boos, director of infection prevention at Saint Luke’s Health System, in Kansas City.
Active tuberculosis illness can take weeks to develop. It's not sudden, like the flu, COVID-19 or a common cold.
Just because people attended the Chiefs AFC championship win or another crowded event, Boos told Paste BN, “that doesn’t mean that you are now suddenly at risk for having TB. That is just not likely the case at all.”
But if you sat next to someone in the nosebleeds of Arrowhead Stadium who was coughing and, say, had the flu, Boos added, “you have a pretty good chance of maybe getting that.”
People who are immunocompromised or have chronic diseases and are exposed to people with active tuberculosis should take precautions, she said. Those with underlying health issues have a higher risk of contracting tuberculosis and developing serious illness.
All about the tuberculosis outbreak
As of Friday, 67 people, in eastern Kansas, are being treated for active tuberculosis, and 79 people have latent cases of disease, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. The outbreak is concentrated in two counties in the Kansas City metropolitan area and was first reported in January 2024. Two people have died in the outbreak.
In a statement, health department spokesperson Jill Bronaugh said the ongoing outbreak is the largest in recent history, and there could be more cases.
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.
Tuberculosis symptoms explained
Tuberculosis, caused by the bacterium called Mycobacterium tuberculosis, spreads through germs from people with active illness, CDC says. Often, the telltale sign of active tuberculosis is longstanding cough with phlegm that could have blood.
When infected people cough, sneeze or speak, those germs float in the air that others can inhale. Exposure typically requires being in a small, enclosed space − like a jail, nursing home or classroom − for longer periods of time.
In some ways, tuberculosis spreads similarly to respiratory viruses, often through droplets people release when they cough, sneeze or talk. Congregate settings and colder, drier temperatures are great for these respiratory viruses.
Symptoms for respiratory viruses tend to come on much sooner than tuberculosis. Meanwhile, activity nationally is high for winter respiratory viruses, according to CDC data. Last flu season, for example, over 470,000 people were hospitalized for the flu, and 28,000 people died from flu-related complications.
What do we know about tuberculosis?
Still, there have been increases in tuberculosis since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The causes behind increases in tuberculosis aren’t immediately clear. It’s thought delays in care from the COVID-19 pandemic and return to travel and migration play parts in rises.
In the U.S., cases jumped 15% from 2022 to 2023, the most recent year of data that saw over 9,600 provisional cases. That’s up from less than 8,900 tuberculosis cases in 2019.
“TB is a bit like an iceberg,” Dr. Luke Davis, an associate professor of epidemiology of Yale School of Public Health, told Paste BN. “The cases that get reported to CDC mask a much larger prevalence.”
These numbers hide latent infections that the body controls but don’t show symptoms of active tuberculosis. Without treatment, latent tuberculosis can result in active cases in the future. While active tuberculosis can spread between people, latent cases cannot. This dormant state benefits the bacterium from being detected, but it can activate at any time and make a person sick. That’s where increased screening and prevention come in to play.
There is also a vaccine for tuberculosis, but it's not widely used in the U.S., in part because disease transmission in the country is low and the vaccine's protection weakens over time, Davis said.
Globally, tuberculosis continues to be an issue. The World Health Organization indicated 2023 had 8.2 million people who were newly diagnosed with tuberculosis, the highest number since WHO began monitoring for the disease in 1995. In 2023, tuberculosis overtook COVID-19 as the most deadly infectious disease, with 1.25 million people who died from infections.
Funding for public health in question
The U.S. has historically been the largest funder of WHO, as well as global tuberculosis programs. On his first day in office, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to pull the U.S. out of WHO. The administration has since ordered CDC staff to immediately stop collaborating with WHO, the Associated Press reported.
While public health funding remains in question, what's clear is the Chiefs are set to play the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl 59 on Feb. 9 in New Orleans. What's also known is the annual highs of flu cases in the winter, typically in February. So if you plan to go to the game, keep that in mind as you cheer on your team.