Cleanness of the public restroom in a rural municipality, Thailand.

Sir,

Restroom is an important place in any house that the family use for toileting. The sanitation of the restroom is very important. Many diseases including diarrhea are related to poor restrooms. The great concern is usually on the public restroom. The contamination of bacteria[1] and helminthic parasites[2] can be seen. To understand the present situation of the restroom cleanness is a basic step for implementation of the plan for management of sanitation.[3] Here, the author reports a preliminary observation of the cleanness of the public restroom in a rural municipality, Maungsurin, Thailand. The studied area is a rural province, 450 km from Bangkok, the capital of Thailand. Overall 73 public restrooms (in public yards, transportation terminal, market, etc.) were assessed by official standards of Department of Health, Thailand. Of interest, only five restrooms (6.6%) passed the standards. This implies the very high rate of non-standard public restroom in this area. The contaminated restroom can be a source of germ and spreading of several pathogens to the community is possible.[1] Several bacterial pathogens can be isolated from public restrooms.[4] In addition, the dirty restroom is also a source of contamination fear for general people and many women tried to avoid public restroom usage and can result in the problem of urinary tract infection.[5] Based on the present report, it is suggested that promotion of sanitation for the public restroom in the study area is required. In fact, cleanness of the public restroom is a big issue to be mentioned in rural medicine.