Reinfection tuberculosis: two cases in the family of a patient with drug-resistant disease.

Abstract

A 42-year-old housewife died of drug-resistant pulmonary tuberculosis. Two sons had earlier completed a course of treatment for drug-sensitive disease. Six months after her death both sons developed sputum-positive tuberculosis with a drug resistance pattern identical to that of their mother during her last year of life, and including resistance to drugs which neither son had received. In both cases immunocompetence to tuberculin was shown so that reinfection arose purely as a result of heavy exposure.