Fact checked by Nick Blackmer A tuberculosis (TB) outbreak in the Kansas City area has gained national attention this week, with headlines claiming it’s the “largest outbreak in U.S. history” since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) started recording cases in the 1950s.

A yearlong tuberculosis outbreak in the Kansas City metropolitan area has sparked concern as cases of the highly contagious disease exceed the national level in a majority of states. To be clear, public health officials say the threat to the general public of sometimes fatal tuberculosis remains low,