" Cursing your sick colleague for the infection you can feel settling into your chest? You might want to aim the finger of blame closer to home.

It's entirely possible you may have infected yourself with whatever respiratory bug has latched onto your lungs. The same can be said about the some of the stomach-wrenching gastrointestinal ailments people occasionally get.

That's because with a number of infections, people sometimes self-inoculate. They take germs they picked up on their hands when they were hanging onto bus poles or shaking a hand someone recently sneezed into and they deliver the bugs to places where those bugs can go from harmless to disease causing.

In a nutshell, they stick germ-coated fingers into their mouths, they rub their eyes, they are even known to poke a finger into a nostril.

And voila! Bug on skin becomes bug on mucus membrane — a much more porous surface and an easier route to a warm and welcoming place for the bug to migrate towards.

Handwashing and alcohol gels can slough those germs off your fingers. And that's why public health officials repeat the handwashing mantra relentlessly, particularly during cold and flu season."

Flu Prevention: The Most Important Thing You Can Do To Prevent Cold And Flu