Thanks for your question and concern about genital warts. As you may know, genital warts are caused by Human Papilloma Virus and so, is a viral disease. It is usually seen as a sexually transmitted infection. After getting contracted with the virus, it may not show any particular symptoms for some time. Even if the patient is affected, the virus may be dormant in the body, due to our immune system. This can be spread from person to person by just skin to skin contact and not by penetrative sex. Condoms can give a minimal protection if the warts are in the shaft of penis. But if the virus is on some other area than the shaft condom will be helpless in providing protection. Abstaining from sex with partners having infection is the easiest way to prevent getting infected. Also, there are vaccines available which can prevent infection, once the course is completed. Gardasil vaccine is the best known vaccine against HPV and it provides protection from 4 most common types of HPV infections. It consists of 3 shots taken once in 6 months, for a lifetime protection. To rule out a chance of HPV outbreak, a pap smear test is done to find abnormal cell growths in cervix. Some types of HPVs can cause cervical cancer and so, you need to be careful with the results. Doing pap smear test at regular intervals as suggested by the doctor can help you with this. Once HPV is infected, it will stay for the rest of life, as no medical cure is available for complete removal of virus from body. However it is not seen to be transmitted to babies by birth. Hope my answer helps. Take care.