Authored by Katie Budd, Program Manager in Public Health – Seattle & King County’s TB Program
In 2023 and 2024, tuberculosis (TB) re-claimed its long-held status as the world’s deadliest infectious disease. Globally, 10.8 million people developed TB disease in 2023, including 1.25 million people who died of TB disease.
An additional 1.7 billion people, or one quarter of the world’s population, are infected with latent TB infection, also known as sleeping, inactive, or dormant TB. When someone has latent TB, the bacteria are living in their bodies, but don’t cause symptoms and cannot be spread to others. Latent TB can progress to TB disease without treatment.
TB disease and latent TB continue to be an international health crisis that deserves the world’s attention. It’s also an important health issue right here at home. For this year’s World TB Day on March 24, let’s take a closer look at what’s happening in King County and how our community is working to stop this disease.
Local impacts
In King County, an estimated 100,000 people are living with latent TB, and there were 110 cases of active TB disease in 2024. Most TB disease cases are in those who have had latent TB for an extended period of time and progress to active disease.
TB disease has serious impacts on a person’s physical health, but also impacts their family life, ability to work, their mental health, and often relationships with their closest friends.
Here’s good news: latent TB is treatable, and taking medicine for latent TB before you get sick prevents the progression to active TB disease.
In fact, most active TB cases could be prevented by screening and treating people who have spent significant time in countries where TB is more common. That includes most places throughout the world, aside from the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Western Europe.
Local TB prevention efforts
Our TB Program at Public Health works hard to care for and support those with active TB disease and their close contacts. People with active TB disease receive high quality medical care, visits at home, consults with their other doctors, and referrals to supportive resources.
We also have opportunities to get ahead of the disease, including screening more people for latent TB, and quickly diagnosing and treating cases of active TB, before more people are infected.
Teaming up with community partners, our TB Program is making progress on these fronts. The Program has partnered with Public Health’s team of Community Navigators – community leaders representing various ethnic and language groups throughout the county who work with Public Health to share vital health information in their communities. To date, the Community Navigators have provided TB presentations and outreach at close to 700 health fairs, clinics and community events, in over 15 languages, helping people who are at highest risk for TB infection and disease get trusted information and connections to care.
They’ve also taken their outreach door to door providing TB education and resources – such as transportation to medical appointments – to people who are at high risk for TB, presented to high school and college students, conducted trainings for healthcare providers about cultural competency and TB, and produced a series of TB podcast episodes with Healthcare for Humans, created by Dr. Raj Sundar.
Most recently, they’ve been working in partnership with Ethnomed to produce culture-specific TB resources for healthcare providers, helping them engage people in culturally aware conversations around latent TB treatment.
Public Health’s TB team also lends its expertise statewide. Tuberculosis cases are rare in many smaller counties, so they don’t always have the expertise to handle complex cases. The Washington TB Collaborative Network, which is run out of Public Health’s TB Program, provides training, technical support, and expert guidance to other counties in Washington State when they experience a potential TB case. Leveraging our expertise with folks across the state has improved TB diagnosis and treatment, slowed the spread of disease, and strengthened public health across the state.
Take action
Too many people suffer from TB disease each year across the globe and in King County. If you have latent TB or think you may have been exposed to TB in the past, consider talking to your healthcare provider about whether testing and preventative treatment is right for you.
For questions, please visit www.kingcounty.gov/tb or email us: LTBI@kingcounty.gov.
And to learn more about international efforts to fight TB, visit the Stop TB Partnership.
Together, we can end TB.
Additional resources
- Multilingual educational flyers about TB and TB treatment from our TB Program
- “Healthcare for Humans” podcast series featuring Public Health’s Community Navigators discussing TB
Originally published on March 24, 2025.