Isolation of Enterovirus from Feacal Samples of Patients with Diabetes Mellitus in Maiduguri, Nigeria

In this study, 150 patients were recruited out of which 63(42%) were male while 87(58%) were female subjects. Patients with type 1 diabetes were 2(1.3%), those with type 2 were 142(94.7%) while those with GDM were 4(4%). Only one sample from type 2 was positive by virus isolation and identified to be Echovirus 1 and 21 by microneutralization tests as described in WHO polio laboratory manual, 2004. It has been demonstrated that enterovirus infections were significantly more common in recently diagnosed diabetic patients, compared to control subjects. The question if enterovirus could cause beta cell damage and diabetes mellitus has become more and more relevant when recent studies have provided new evidence supporting this scenario especially in type 1 diabetes. This is an important issue since it opens the possibility to develop new, preventive and therapeutic strategies to fight the disease. The purpose of this study is to investigate if enterovirus can be isolated from the stool samples of diabetic patients as a study.