Alabama high school reports active tuberculosis case as nationwide cases rise

An active case of tuberculosis has been detected at Jasper High School in Alabama, just weeks into the new school year. The Jasper City Board of Education said the school was notified on Thursday that a person at the school has an active TB infection, and officials identified close contacts for testing.

The school has about 1,100 students in grades nine through 12. The Alabama Department of Public Health said it is working with the district to identify and notify anyone who may have had close contact with the person. Free testing has been scheduled for close contacts or others, and the school has been sanitized with hospital-grade sanitizer. Health officials stressed that students and staff are no longer at risk of exposure to the identified case.

The case comes as tuberculosis infections have risen across the United States in recent years. The latest federal data show the United States provisionally recorded 10,347 TB cases in 2024, up eight percent from 2023 and the highest tally since 2011. The rise follows a string of cases earlier in the fall, including a high school case in North Carolina and three cases in Maine announced within days of each other.

In September, a high school student in North Carolina tested positive for active TB, and three cases emerged in Maine, with officials noting there was no known connection among the patients and suggesting multiple sources of infection. Kansas health officials warned in January that the state was experiencing what they described as the largest documented TB outbreak in U.S. history, with 67 people infected since the start of 2024, according to the latest figures.

Public health experts emphasize that early detection and treatment are essential to limiting spread. Children, older adults, and people with weakened immune systems are at higher risk for progressing from latent infection to active TB. Symptoms in the early stages typically include a persistent cough lasting several weeks, sometimes coughing up blood or chest pain, along with unexplained weight loss, fever, and night sweats. In advanced cases, patients may develop severe breathing problems and extensive lung damage, and the infection can spread to other organs.

TB has a long historical footprint. The World Health Organization considers tuberculosis the deadliest infectious disease worldwide, killing more people each year than any other illness. In the United States, the advent of antibiotics dramatically reduced TB deaths from as many as 20,000 annually in the 1950s to about 560 per year by 2023, according to CDC data. Still, TB cases have fluctuated, with a notable decline from 1993 to 2020 that was followed by a rise starting in 2021. The latest figures show the burden remains uneven across states, with TB infections rising in 40 states and only declining in 10.

Vaccination with the Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine is common in many countries but is not routinely administered in the United States. The vaccine is typically reserved for children in high-exposure settings or health care workers in areas with increased spread, because its effectiveness against adult pulmonary TB varies and it can interfere with TB skin tests. As cases rise, public health officials urge Americans to pay attention to symptoms and seek evaluation if a persistent cough or other warning signs develop. Those diagnosed with TB should complete the full course of treatment to prevent drug resistance and further transmission.