Bacterial skin flora of diabetic patients in the Jos University Teaching Hospital, Jos

Diabetics frequently are afflicted with bacterial skin infections because of the high circulating blood sugar. The frequent skin infections in these patients may be a result of change in normal skin flora. This study was carried out to find out the normal skin flora of these patients. Ninety four (50 study and 44 control) consecutive subjects were studied for bacterial skin flora at the Jos University Teaching Hospital (JUTH). It was observed that Staphylococcus epidermidis was commonly isolated from the skin of diabetic subjects. Staphylococcus aureus ranked second both groups. In the control group, Escherichia coli was the commonest organism isolated. Although, more organisms were isolated from study than from control subjects, there was no statistically significant difference in skin colonization. However the types of organisms colonizing the skin of the two groups were different. One would, therefore, conclude that there is a change in bacterial skin flora of diabetic subjects from Escherichia coli which is the commonest in control subjects to Staphylococcus epidermidis which is the commonest in study subjects. This therefore may be the explanation for the increased prevalence of bacterial skin infection in the diabetics. Keywords : skin, flora, bacteria, diabetes Journal of Medicine in the Tropics Vol. 7(1) 2005: 9-13