[A case of congenital tuberculosis]

A case of lethal acute congenital tuberculosis is reported in a 3-week-old infant who presented a crural adenopathy. An acute miliary pulmonary tuberculosis with extensive cutaneous reaction to tuberculin then appeared. Mycobacterium tuberculosis was found in the node and in urines. Specific treatment was ineffective and the child died within 5 weeks because of extensive lung lesions. A patent pulmonary tuberculosis was discovered in a grandmother that could not be incriminated to contamination because the incubation period was too short and the germ was of different type. A foetopathy could have been transmitted by the mother, who previously had a pulmonary tuberculosis, without late genital localisation. Therefore, a transient bacteriema from an enclosed older lung lesion in the mother may be evoked. A preventive treatment and a tight survey must be undertaken for a next pregnancy.