Congenital tuberculosis in an infant of a mother with relapsed multi-drug resistant tuberculosis: A Case report

Abstract

Although congenital tuberculosis (TB) is rare, it is associated with a high mortality rate. The infection is mainly acquired transplacentally and less frequently from infective lesions on the maternal genital tract. Many cases are missed in clinical practice due to the non-specific presentation of the disease hence the tendency to either miss the diagnosis or make the diagnosis late. We report an infant of a 32-year-old mother who was treated for multi-drug resistant TB before the index pregnancy and probably had a relapse during pregnancy. The infant presented with features of sepsis at the age of ten days, but tuberculosis was only suspected when there was no clinical response to routine antibiotic therapy, and the medical history of the mother was reviewed. This report is to create awareness about the non-specific manifestations of the disease and highlight some helpful diagnostic methods in a resource- poor setting.

Keywords

• gene x-pert
• isoniazid monotherapy
• multi-drug resistant tuberculosis
• neonatal sepsis
• neonatal tuberculosis
• tuberculin