I heard a particularly graphic description yesterday, by a medic, of the mechanisms by which norovirus transmits itself between people.
Suffice to say that any form of use of a lavatory when you have the bug creates aerosol particles, from which others can be infected (if the queen can get it, then we are all at risk).
In a normal bathroom, the fan which it may contain will actually tend to suck bugs into the room. Today’s invention is therefore a fan unit which fits inside lavatory bowls.
A set of small apertures suck any spray into an exhaust tube before it can be breathed in.
This might be especially valuable in hospitals and could be activated whenever the lid was raised (thus acting as an extra signal to lower the seat, post normal use).
It should also keep the bathroom smelling a bit fresher too.
Had this same idea years ago, could also be applied to an urinoir, and IIRC it was patented long ago.
Additional:
– The tubing has UV Light to kill germs and maybe break down gas?
– The system has a bacterial detection chip to detect the noro
– The system analyzes the gases produced and prints a diagnosis on toilet-paper which you can read before use 😉
You are correct Rob…seems I didn’t search hard enough for this one. See here eg.
http://www.google.com/patents/US20120227586?dq=toilet+fan+disease+bowl&hl=en&sa=X&ei=42I7UYCrLYyB7QaUmYCoDg&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA
I like the diagnosis idea. It’s very big in Japan, but the details I’m not going to get into 😉