A tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas has killed two people and caused at least 146 to become infected with the potentially deadly respiratory disease during one of the largest outbreaks in the nation's history.

A yearlong outbreak of tuberculosis in the Kansas City, Kansas area has taken local experts aback, even if it does not appear to be the largest outbreak of the disease in U.S. history as a state health official claimed last week.

State health officials said that dozens of people in the Kansas City, Kan., area have the disease, which has drawn a federal response.