Tuberculosis cases are on the rise, including in North Carolina.
The Kansas City area is currently at the epicenter of an unusual tuberculosis outbreak, where 67 people are being treated for the highly contagious disease
Tuberculosis is spread through air particles and impacts the lungs with a cough, fever and long illness.
“Tuberculosis is an infectious disease caused by slow growing bacteria,” said Dr. Nicholas Turner, an infectious disease specialist with Duke Health. “It usually affects the lungs, so most patients will present with a cough, fever and weight loss.”
Turner said the illness typically lasts up to three weeks.
“It’s fully treatable, it’s just a long treatment to take care of it,” he said.
Tuberculosis is often spread through coughing and singing and can spread in big indoor group gatherings like workplaces, arenas and churches.
“It’s usually spread indoors,” Turner said. “Anything that gets a large number of people in same room is a hotspot for outbreaks.”
Duke University Hospital said, in the last week, they had less than 10 cases. WRAL News is also checking with the WakeMed hospital system and UNC Rex for their numbers.
“We absolutely have had a handful of cases in our area,” Turner said. “The numbers we have seen are a bit high for January alone.”
While we don’t yet have numbers for 2024, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS), there were 215 confirmed cases in our state in 2023.
Wake County was the second-highest in the state, with 25 confirmed cases, followed by Mecklenburg County, with 37 confirmed cases.
NCDHHS contract tracing and surveillance showed the last time the numbers were that high were in the 1980s, when North Carolina saw over 1,000 cases.
“We are on pace for two consecutive years of increases in our tuberculosis after 30 years of decline,” Turner said.
Part of the rise is a product of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We do think the COVID period impacted our rates because, in general, there was a reduction in people’s ability to access preventative services,” Turner said.
Turner stressed the tuberculosis vaccine doesn’t offer much protection for adult, and there is no need to seek one out.
“In the United States we do not routinely vaccinate for tuberculosis,” he said.
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