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

Abstract

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
Skin Test.