Kansas and Missouri doctors discuss the late summer COVID-19 spike during a University of Kansas Health System medical briefing Aug. 30, 2024. (Kansas Reflector screen capture from KU Health video)
TOPEKA — As the Kansas and Missouri medical communities prepare for respiratory illness season, health officials grapple with an early COVID-19 infection spike and higher-than-normal tuberculosis infections in Wyandotte County.
COVID positivity rates have been steadily increasing in Kansas, Missouri and across the country since July. The increase is higher than last summer’s rates and similar to the surge in infections seen this January, doctors said during a Friday morning medical update from the University of Kansas Health System.
But those rates only scratch the surface, and medical professionals are uncertain what the upcoming respiratory illness season could look like, especially when continued COVID vaccinations have begun to dwindle, even with a new FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine, which recently became available at commercial pharmacies.
“I think there’s a lot more illness at home. There’s a lot more tests at home. There’s a lot of people who aren’t testing,” said Dana Hawkinson, an infectious disease specialist with KU Health.
Respiratory illness activity in Kansas has been minimal, according to measures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Respiratory Illnesses Data Channel.
However, the level of COVID-19 activity detected in wastewater systems throughout Kansas is on the rise, as is the case regionally and nationally, according to the channel. Monitoring wastewater can offer early warning signs that infections are increasing or decreasing in a given community without relying on whether people present with symptoms, according to the CDC’s website.
In November, hospitals will be mandated to report their COVID numbers for the first time since May, which will give medical professionals an opportunity to better understand infection rates through data.
While hospitals have yet to see many flu cases, doctors recommended people receive a flu vaccine along with the new COVID vaccine and a respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, vaccine, if appropriate.
A vaccine is the best way to prevent serious COVID infections, said Chakshu Gupta, the chief medical officer at Liberty Hospital in Liberty, Missouri.
“It is very disappointing to be in such a great nation with such (an) educated, informed population and our vaccination rates against such a severe illness is in the low 15 to 20%,” he said during the update Friday morning.
Tuberculosis outbreak in Wyandotte County
Kansas has recorded 82 confirmed cases of active tuberculosis this year, which is almost double last year’s total of 46 cases. All of the active cases are being treated to limit the spread, Jill Bronaugh, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, said in an email. More than half of this year’s cases, 57, originated in Wyandotte County, and six were reported from Johnson County.
“TB is an infectious disease that most often affects the lungs and is caused by a type of bacteria,” Bronaugh said. “It spreads through the air when infected people cough, speak, or sing.”
Two people have died from tuberculosis in Kansas this year. A cause for the increase this year has not been identified. Bronaugh said the state and county health departments are working with the CDC to monitor and prevent the spread of tuberculosis.
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