Candidiasis among diabetic patients attending Aminu Kano teaching hospital, Kano-Nigeria

Candidiasis is a yeast infection caused by the species of the genus candida that lives as commensal in/on some parts of the body, like gastrointestinal tract, respiratory tract, vagina and even on the skin. However, they later change to opportunistic pathogens under certain conditions especially in suger environment like in diabetic patients, because they are suger loving organisms. The study was to identify the extent of Candida infections among diabetic patients. During the study,Clean catch midstream urine samples were collected from the participants, the samples were inoculated onto Sabouraud Dextrose Agar (SDA) and incubated at 37oC for 48h. Gram’s staining technique, germ tube test and KOH test were the techniques performed on purity plate before subculture on to Chromogenic agar for phenotypic speciation of the isolates.  A prevalence of 16.2% was observed with four different candida species (Candida albicans 45.7%, Candida krusei28.6%, candida glabrata 20% and Candida tropicalis 5.7%) isolated. Infection rate according to gender, the result showed that female were the most affected than males and age limit of 31-45 was the most infected group based on the study followed by 46-60 age range while the age range of 16-30 had the least infection rate in the study.