SAN FRANCISCO -- The San Francisco Department of Public Health launched a regional campaign Wednesday to promote ways for staying healthy through the coming cold and flu season.

The "Infect Me Not" campaign was introduced at a news conference on the steps of City Hall by public health director Mitch Katz and Susan Fernyak, director of communicable disease control and prevention.

"We're going to make sure we get out the message to keep your germs to yourself," Katz said.

Fernyak listed eight healthy habits people can develop to avoid getting sick and infecting others, including washing hands frequently, getting vaccinated, staying home from work when sick and covering sneezes to avoid spreading germs.

The department unveiled advertisements that are already being displayed in Bay Area Rapid Transit and San Francisco Municipal Railway stations throughout the city.

One of the ads, which shows a couple sitting on a couch wearing gas masks, reads, "There are easier ways to protect yourself."

The department also held a "Healthy Habit Song-Writing Contest" and the winners, who composed songs about coughing and sneezing, performed at the news conference.

The contestants included the "Ray Tones," a local band with a dancing rhinoceros, and 20 first-graders from St. Thomas Apostle School.

The campaign hopes to reach kids as well as adults, "all of us who go to work when we're sick and cough all over the place," Fernyak said.