PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Folke Brinkmann
AU  - Helga Heykes-Uden
AU  - Claudia Tombois
AU  - Olga Kordonouri
AU  - Gesine Hansen
TI  - Chance acquaintanceship with long-term consequences
DP  - 2014 Sep 01
TA  - European Respiratory Journal
PG  - P2668
VI  - 44
IP  - Suppl 58
4099  - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/44/Suppl_58/P2668.short
4100  - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/44/Suppl_58/P2668.full
SO  - Eur Respir J2014 Sep 01; 44
AB  - Introduction:Tuberculosis (TB) in childhood has become rare in Germany. About 80% of the infected children have a migration background. Children living in a household with a smear positive adult are at high risk of TB infection (60-80%). Infants suffer more often from rapid progression and disseminated TB disease. Therefore chemoprophylaxis in exposed infants is recommended. Rapid and thorough contract tracing is essential to identify e.g. resistant TB strains.Case report:A three month old girl presented with fever and failure to thrive. She was from a family with migration background and was diagnosed with complicated and disseminated pulmonary tuberculosis. Contact tracing in the family and surrounding was performed immediately but yielded no results. Genetic fingerprinting finally identified the baby's strain as identical to a woman's who died of pulmonary TB at that time. The girls' family had lived in the same block of flats for a few weeks. The infected girl's family did not recall any contact with the deceased women apart from a very brief encounter in the corridor just after the girl was born.Conclusion:TB infection in infants can develop even if the contact with the index case is very short. This stresses the importance of chemoprophylaxis with isoniazide in all exposed children under the age of five. Contact tracing is essential to identify the index person and resistance pattern of the TB strain. New molecular methods can improve contact tracing and clarify the chain of infection.