A Rare Congenital Brucellosis Re-Emerging in Kuwait: A Case Report

Abstract

A neonate product of a 29-year-old asymptomatic G2P1, Saudi mother, and Kuwaiti father through spontaneous vaginal delivery admitted to neonatal intensive care unit with respiratory distress, meconium aspiration syndrome, intrauterine growth retardation & poor suckling. Routine blood work showed thrombocytopenia, high C reactive protein positive brucella agglutination test and positive culture for Brucella species. The first Brucella standard agglutination test (SAT) for both mother & neonate and blood cultures of the neonate were positive for brucella species & the child was never breastfed or blood transfused, indicating an intrauterine transmission of brucellosis. The neonate treated with dual antibiotics regimen Rifampicin & Ciprofloxacin for 42 day (6 weeks). Missed follow up then shown at age of 5 months with below 5th percentile weight and skeletal malformation and positive SAT and blood culture for Brucella species. This is the first congenital brucellosis discovered since 1994, although cases of human Brucellosis rising in Kuwait in the last 10 years.