With children resuming school in the coming weeks, sickness and disease will also be back in the classroom.

Student-filled classrooms can be an optimal breeding ground for germs and bacteria, so a watchful eye is key to ensuring a healthy school year.

Leading into fall, Dr. Richard Rusk, the medical officer for communicable diseases with Manitoba Health, says West Nile Virus, which there have been seven confirmed human cases of this year in the province, and tick-related diseases are on the radar.

"Going into September, October is another high risk time for tick-born diseases, and so that would be for Lyme disease and anaplasmosis. There's a few different diseases that the black-legged tick actually will carry .... The adults kind of start coming out and looking for their meal for the winter in September and October," Rusk said.

He says summer is also a common time for people to contract gastrointestinal infections, like salmonella or E. coli, because they are not cooking meat thoroughly on the barbecue.

The doctor encourages parents to get their children vaccinated to protect them and others from harmful diseases.

"We need our population to be vaccinated at around about 90 per cent, that would be ideal, and that would really prevent the spread of these vaccine-preventable diseases. Unfortunately, Manitoba tends to settle around 75 - there's a few communities that are at 80 per cent - so we're not quite there and we need to try and work on that for prevention of those types of diseases," he said.

Some reoccuring diseases in fall that are not preventable by vaccination, include rhinovirus (also known as the common cold) parainfluenza, and enterovirus. Rusk says the best way to avoid the spread of these is to wash hands on a regular basis, use your elbow to cover your cough and sneeze, and stay home when you're feeling sick.