There are everyday actions people can take to stay healthy. To learn more, visit the Centers For Disease Control (CDC).

Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it. Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. Alcohol-based hand cleaners are also effective. Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread that way. Try to avoid close contact with sick people.

Influenza is thought to spread mainly through person-to-person and through coughing or sneezing by infected people. If you get sick, the CDC recommends that you stay home from work or school and limit contact with others to keep from infecting them.

The single best way to prevent seasonal flu is to get vaccinated each year, but good health habits like covering your cough and washing your hands often can help stop the spread of germs and prevent respiratory illnesses like the flu. There also are flu antiviral drugs that can be used to treat and prevent the flu.

1. Avoid close contact. Avoid close contact with people who are sick. When you are sick, keep your distance from others to protect them from getting sick too.
   
   
2. Stay home when you are sick. If possible, stay home from work, school, and errands when you are sick. You will help prevent others from catching your illness.
   
   
3. Cover your mouth and nose. Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when coughing or sneezing. It may prevent those around you from getting sick.
   
   
4. Clean your hands. Washing your hands often will help protect you from germs.
   
   
5. Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs are often spread when a person touches something that is contaminated with germs and then touches his or her eyes, nose, or mouth.
   
   
6. Practice other good health habits.

Get plenty of sleep, be physically active, manage your stress, drink plenty of fluids, and eat nutritious food.

Cover Your Cough
Stop the Spread of Germs that Make You and Others Sick!

Serious respiratory illnesses like influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), whooping cough, and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) are spread by:

• Coughing or sneezing
• Unclean hands

To help stop the spread of germs,

• Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze.
• If you don't have a tissue, cough or sneeze into your upper sleeve, not your hands.
• Put your used tissue in the waste basket.

Clean your hands after coughing or sneezing

• Wash with soap and water.
• Clean with alcohol-based hand cleaner.

Note: You may be asked to put on a surgical mask to protect others.

Remind children to practice healthy habits too,
Germs tend to spread, especially at school.

The flu has caused high rates of absenteeism among students and staff in our country's 119,000 schools. Influenza is not the only respiratory infection of concern in schools -- nearly 22 million schools days are lost each year to the common cold alone. However, when children practice healthy habits, they miss fewer days of school.

Take time to get a flu vaccine.

• CDC recommends a yearly flu vaccine as the first and most important step in protecting against this serious disease.
• While there are many different flu viruses, the flu vaccine protects against the three main flu strains that research indicates will cause the most illness during the flu season.
• The vaccine can protect you from getting sick from these three viruses or it can make your illness milder if you get a different flu virus.
• Getting a vaccine is very important for people at high risk for serious flu complications, including young children, pregnant women, people with chronic health conditions like asthma, diabetes or heart or lung disease, and people 65 and older.
• People who live with or care for those at high risk should also get a flu vaccine to protect their high-risk contact.

Take flu antiviral drugs if your doctor recommends them.

• If you do get the flu, antiviral drugs are an important treatment option. (They are not a substitute for vaccination.)
• Antiviral drugs are prescription medicines (pills, liquid or an inhaler) that fight against the flu by keeping flu viruses from reproducing in your body.
• Antiviral drugs can make your illness milder and make you feel better faster. They may also prevent serious flu complications. This could be especially important for people at high risk.
• For treatment, antiviral drugs work best if started soon after getting sick (within 2 days of symptoms).
• Flu-like symptoms include fever (usually high), headache, extreme tiredness, dry cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose and muscle aches.