An outbreak of tuberculosis in the Kansas City area has grown into one of the largest ever recorded in the United States, with dozens of active cases of the infectious disease reported, according to health officials.

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.

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,

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

A wave of tuberculosis cases hitting the Kansas City, Kansas, metro area has become the largest documented TB outbreak in the United States since monitoring began in the 1950s, according to the state health department.

Kansas is experiencing record-high tuberculosis cases in two counties. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment and a TB expert weigh in on the public risk.

Kansas is currently facing one the largest tuberculosis outbreaks in U.S. history with 67 confirmed active cases and 79 confirmed latent cases.

State and local public health officials in Kansas are responding to a tuberculosis (TB) outbreak in the Kansas City area, where approximately 70 patients are being treated for active disease, according to a press release from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment’s (KDHE’s) Division of Public Health.

Two counties in the Kansas City area continue to grapple with what is now a yearlong outbreak of tuberculosis.

An ongoing tuberculosis outbreak in the Kansas City area is now the "largest documented outbreak in U.S. history," health officials said Monday.

An ongoing tuberculosis outbreak in the Kansas City, Kansas, area is posing a low risk to the general public, state officials said this week.