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Background: Attaining a good glycaemic control is usually the target for therapy in diabetic patients as this is expected to prevent both acute and chronic complications. Oral infections are however very common among diabetic patients despite the presence of many immunologic proteins in the saliva. This study was designed to determine the impact of glycaemic control on levels of these proteins in diabetic patients., Methods: Salivary lysozyme, histatins, immunoglobulin A and immunoglobulin G were measured in diabetic patients. The levels of these immunologic proteins were compared between patients whose HbA1c were less than 7% and those whose values were greater than or equal to 7%., Results: A total of 95 participants were recruited for this study with 37 (38.9%) of them having a median HbA1c of 6.3% (IQR 5.3- 6.6) and the remaining 58 (61.1%) having a median HbA 1c of 9.1% (IQR 8.1-10.5). There was no significant difference in salivary lysozyme (31.24 vs 33.77 ng/ml; p = 0.69), histatins (9.65 vs 9.17 ng/ml; p = 0.27), IgA (12.79 vs 12.19 μg/ml; p = 0.16) and IgG (31.29 vs 32.49 μg/ml; p = 0.85) between the group with good and those with poor glycaemic control., Conclusion: This study showed that glycaemic control does not impact the levels of salivary immunologic proteins in diabetic patients, so quality attention should be given to oral care to avoid the development of oral complications., Competing Interests: The Authors declare that no competing interest exists., (Copyright © 2022 by West African Journal of Medicine.)

Global health has been thrown into turmoil by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused devastating morbidity and unprecedented loss of life in almost all continents of the world. It was predicted that the magnitude of the pandemic in Africa will be high because of poor health structure and intensely poor living condition, but that has not happened, surprisingly. It was hypothesized that the youthful population and a vastly primed immune system were protective, and many people may have been exposed without coming down with the severe disease. Most of them would have presented in hospitals with other medical conditions and possibly transmit COVID-19 to health workers inadvertently. This study is designed to measure serum SARS-CoV-2 IgG levels in health workers as a marker of latent exposure. Asymptomatic frontline health workers were randomly selected from the University College Hospital Ibadan, Nigeria; venous blood samples were obtained from them, and the serum SARS-CoV-2 IgG level was determined using ELISA techniques. A proportion of participants with seropositivity were obtained, and factors associated with seropositivity were determined. A total of 133 participants were recruited for this study, and 60 (45.1%) of them were seropositive for SARS-CoV-2. Among the seropositive participants were doctors, nurses, health assistants, laboratory scientists and technicians, and nonmedical staff. Obstetrics, gynecology, and emergency departments had higher odds of seropositivity. Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 is very high among frontline health workers, though asymptomatic. This calls for a more stringent precaution against further spread within the hospital environment.