Strep throat

Dear Ask The Doctor: I am a mother of twins. My question is about strep. If one of my kids get strep I try and disenfect as much as I can to prevent the other one from getting it. My question is....How long can strep live on a surface and still infect???? Thankq!!

Dear Catherine:

It is not possible to calculate the exact time of infection of those STD’s; however you can estimate depending on when the symptoms appeared.

Chlamydia is known as a "silent" disease because the majority of infected people have no symptoms. If symptoms do occur, they usually appear within 1 to 3 weeks after exposure. The symptoms of gonorrhea are often mild, but most women who are infected have no symptoms. Even when a woman has symptoms, they can be so non-specific as to be mistaken for a bladder or vaginal infection. Men with gonorrhea may have no symptoms at all. However, some men have signs or symptoms that appear two to five days after infection; symptoms can take as long as 30 days to appear.