Infertility

He said: "The figures for chlamydia, gonorrhoea and syphilis are extremely worrying because they are indicating people are having unsafe sex.

"Syphilis rates had been low in England with less than 400 cases per year.

"However, in the last five years we have seen increases in syphilis with more than 2,000 cases reported in England in 2004.

To see such a rapid reemergence of a condition that had more or less disappeared is a worrying thing." He said there had been a change in people's sexual behaviour.

"People are having sex earlier and people are changing partners more often," he said.

"We know from lifestyle surveys that people are more likely to have two sexual partners concurrently than, for example, in 1999." Education - or lack of it - is a huge issue.

Luke said: "I think there are real issues in getting across the message about condoms providing protection against STIs in addition to the broader contraceptive message around preventing unwanted pregnancy.

The message has to be about condoms and femidoms.

"And we need to get the message across that it is OK not to be having sex.

In this country we have been quite far behind some of our European partners in developing programmes for sex education.

We also know the UK has one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in Europe." Messages about...

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