A new strain of stomach flu is threatening the U.S.

It gets in your food, in your laundry, it sticks to plates and it might even float into the air when you flush your toilet.

Federal health officials say a new strain of norovirus is spreading quickly and it's going to be very hard to avoid it.

The virus causes vomiting, diarrhea and that someone-just-hit-me-with-a-plank feeling.

Health experts say there's no real treatment for it except for waiting it out, no vaccine, and recent studies show it's one of the hardest viruses to get rid of.   Simple cleaning alone doesn't always kill it, and it takes just

Raw shellish is a notorious source of norovirus.  The virus can also be spread fecally and that means it can get into laundry.

Studies show that fecal matter spreads even in ordinary laundry, so if someone is sick, it's important to use very hot water and bleach to destroy virus that could be on any clothing, sheets or towels.

The CDC says hand-washed dishes are especially likely to carry the norovirus, which could be one reason it causes so many outbreaks on cruise ships. You can't get the water hot enough if you wash by hand.

In December, a team at Ohio State University found the virus stuck to plates that had been washed in restaurant-like conditions and they found sticky dairy products like cheese helped the virus stay there.

The CDC also recommends using bleach, including chlorine bleach or hydrogen peroxide to get the virus off surfaces.

Norovirus makes 21 million people sick every year in the U.S. with 70,000 having to be hospitalized. Also up to 800 people die every year, mostly elderly patients, who become dehydrated.