How to clean your house to help keep your family safe from the flu

As the flu season worsens -- Hawaii is now the only state not reporting widespread flu activity -- people are looking within their homes to see what they can do to prevent the flu.

Your home -- a contained space where you spend much of your time -- can be a surprising hotbed of germs.

Making the flu more difficult to contain is how quickly the virus can spread. A new study by researchers at the University of Maryland found that patients breathe the influenza virus out through their noses and mouths in small particles.

“We were able to culture the virus from over 40 percent of the aerosol samples we collected, proving that these fine particle aerosols are infectious and capable of transmitting infection,” one of the researchers, Dr. Donald Milton of the University of Maryland School of Public Health, told ABC News.

If someone in your family is sick with the flu, doctors advise quarantining that family member to prevent the spread of the virus.

If no one in your home is sick, there are steps you can take to try to germ-proof your home as much as possible.

Here are doctors' tips.

1. Become a 'hand-washing czar.'

"The single most important thing you should sanitize are your hands," said Dr. William Schaffner, infectious diseases specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. "When we're out in the world, touching this that and the other, the final common pathway is our hands."

Schaffner said his wife, whom he calls the "hand-washing czar" of his home, has instituted a rule that everyone should follow.

"You enter our house, hang up your coat and immediately go to the sink and wash your hands," he said. "That helps prevent introducing the virus to our home."

2. Forget the rules about sharing.

Dr. Peter Shearer, an emergency medicine physician at New York City's Mount Sinai Hospital, advises people to forget what their parents and teacher taught them about sharing during flu season.

"You sort of hate to, but during flu season, it's probably more hygienic to have people drying their hands on paper towels," Shearer said. "Rather than frequently everyone in the family drying on one [hand] towel."

Likewise, members of the same household should use their own bath towels and washcloths too.

3. Use a humidifier.

Using a humidifier can help slow the spread of those tiny particles of influenza that can suspend in the air.

"We do know that influenza survives less well in warmer, humidified air," Shearer said.

4. Clean hard surfaces first, bedding last.

Keep your cleaning simple by focusing on the hard surfaces you touch the most, according to Dr. Randy Bergen, clinical lead of Kaiser Permanente Northern California’s Flu Vaccine Program.