Now that kids are back to school, the spread of sicknesses in the classroom's a concern once again. Regional Manager Public Health and Healthy Living Bev Unger explains why.

"Any time you get a group of people together, particularly children, you will find people touching things, touching each other, sharing pens, pencils, books, etc. It's just an easy place for germs to spread from person to person."

She says the common cold tops the list of commonly spread illnesses.

"And that can be spread either through germs or bacteria or viruses on one's hands, but also with coughing. Coughing or sneezing toward somebody causes little droplets to come out of our mouths. And those can land on other people, or they can land on items that we then pick up. We're coming into the season where we are considering influenza. So that would be respiratory virus. Hand washing and covering your cough definitely can prevent the spread of influenza. Bacteria or germs can also be on food or on pets. By touching them you can spread them. And that can sometimes cause stomach problems. Whether it's stomach flu, vomiting, diarrhoea, nausea, that type of thing. So, all in all, hand washing can prevent a lot of illnesses."

Unger says you can help prevent sickness among your children with the following tips.

"Role modeling for their children is really important. So, demonstrating good hand washing certainly where soap and water is available, that's the first choice. With smaller children, if they've gone to the bathroom before or after eating, even visiting somebody who's sick, even before and after playing with animals, just going into a restroom and washing hands with their children. You can make it a fun thing as well by singing a song while your mixing the soap around in hands. That can quickly take up the 15 or 20 seconds that we recommend people wash their hands."

She notes the recent hand, foot and mouth disease concern.

"There are types of illnesses like hand, foot and mouth that can easily spread by touching, or droplets. If the virus or the bacteria is in our body fluids -- sneezing, coughing, even diapering children -- sometimes we need to be cautious about how the virus or the bacteria comes out of our bodies. Being cautious with hand hygiene can prevent the spread."

Unger says there'll soon be word in the media about flu clinics again.

"We will be having flu clinics starting toward the end of October as in previous years. People can take a look in their mailboxes. We'll be sending out a flyer to all residences at the beginning of October. It'll list the flu clinics that we have in various communities throughout the region."