A new toilet that only flushes when the lid is down could drastically cut the spread of bacteria, especially in hospitals . Researchers from
South Korea have invented a self-flushing toilet, which is only activated when the lid is closed, as a weapon against disease. The force of a toilet flushing produces thousands of tiny aerosol droplets which can contain urine, faeces, and infectious particles that contaminate surfaces up to five feet away. Some of these infectious particles are capable of reaching our lower respiratory tract, which can lead to infection, or contaminating surfaces which, when touched, lead to infection. Inspired by previous studies' discovery that closing the toilet lid can help reduce the spread of these dangerous particles, the team created their self-flushing device which will be presented at this year's European
Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2024) in
Barcelona,
Spain. The researchers tested the effectiveness of their invention at a hospital in Seoul, South Korea, using eight separate patient bathrooms, four with the device and four without. They placed eight blood agar plates - used to culture microbes and bacteria - in different areas of each bathroom and flushed all of the toilets once with no urine or faeces present. I walked out of H&M with six new spring favourites, including Molly-Mae style trench coat The locations where blood agar plates were placed ( Image: SWNS) After allowing the particles to settle the team incubated the plates for two days, allowing visible and countable colonies to grow. Results showed that less than half as many bacterial colonies were found on the surfaces surrounding the toilets fitted with their automatic flushing device compared with those without. They particularly saw less colonies on plates that were on the left rim of the toilet seat, 45cm in front of the toilet, and on the left side of the toilet for bathrooms fitted with the device. In the future the research team hope that their findings will inspire more places, particularly hospitals, to encourage closed-lid flushing. Lead author Dr Jihye Park from the Asan Medical Centre, Seoul, South Korea, said: "Hospital toilets are especially cause for concern for transmitting particles from infected waste. Any potential means of infection control must be applied to keep patients, especially the most vulnerable, as safe and healthy as possible. "Our study underscores the importance of closing the lid before flushing and fitting automatic flushing devices to reduce the contamination of bathroom surfaces. We are now going to install automatic flushing devices in all hospital bathrooms along with automatic UV disinfection to reduce the spread of infections."