Infertility

For women, symptoms can include an unusual vaginal discharge, pain when passing urine and lower abdominal pain or tenderness.

For men, they can include discharge from the tip of the penis, pain when passing urine or pain or tenderness in the testicles.

■ Genital warts - the most common STI, caused by the human papilloma virus.

Warts may take from two weeks to several months to appear after coming into contact with the virus.

They can appear on their own or in groups, internally or externally, and are often tiny and difficult to see.

They are usually painless but may occasionally itch or cause inflammation.

■ Syphilis - caused by bacteria.

Symptoms, which can be hard to recognise, include sores where the bacteria entered the body.

In first stage syphilis, sores usually appear three to four weeks after coming into contact with syphilis and they are highly infectious.

They may take two to six weeks to heal, by which time the bacteria will have spread to other parts of the body.

Second stage syphilis has symptoms including a painless rash spreading over the body, a flu-like illness, white patches on the tongue or roof of mouth and patchy hair loss.

If untreated, the third stage, during which there may be no new symptoms but the condition remains infectious, can last for the rest of someone's life.

It could cause serious damage to the heart, brain, eyes, i...

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