Irish nun who brought AIDS below 10% dies at 84 after teaching virtuous behaviours without the need for condoms. Benedict XVI also spoke in favour of the method (defended by scientists).

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Sister Miriam Duggan, an Irish nun devoted to the poorest in Africa, passed away at the age of 84.

For more than half a century Sister Duggan worked mainly in Uganda, where she promoted an HIV prevention program based on premarital abstinence and marital fidelity, rather than the use of the condom.

In that country, one of the hardest hit by the epidemic, she managed to reduce the infection rate from about 29% to less than 10% between 1991 and 2002.

 

The method of Sister Duggan: fidelity and abstinence

For this reason in 2006 Harvard University and the Holy Cross College in the United States decided to honour her, while in 2008 the nun received a recognition award from the then Ugandan president.

Her initiative — known as “Youth Alive” — was not only a medical response, but a solid educational and social proposal, centered on individual responsibility.

The figure of Sister Duggan fits into a broader context, that of the various strategies adopted in the 1990s to contain AIDS. In Uganda, the shorthand formula “ABC” – Abstinence (“Abstinence”), Fidelity (“Be faithful”), Conditioning the use of condoms (“use Condoms”) – was at the center of a national campaign supported by the media, schools and Catholic communities.

 

Benedict XVI, defended by researchers on condoms

Even Benedict XVI expressed support for the method used by Sister Miriam Duggan, causing an international stir.

However Daniel Halperin, a researcher from Harvard, gave full backing to Pope Ratzinger, suggesting that it is indeed the «reduction in sexual partners» that leads «to a decrease in new AIDS infections», and not a massive spread of condoms.

In fact, a study by the University of Navarra concluded precisely that attempts to stop the spread of HIV in Africa had little success also because of the insistence on condoms, which encouraged a significant number of people to engage in multiple sexual relationships, increasing the chances of infection.

Virologist and microbiologist Carlo-Federico Perno explained in turn that «it is not possible to eliminate a disease often linked to behaviours, without changing the behaviours themselves».

Also Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at Harvard’s Center for Population and Development Studies, openly supported Benedict XVI’s approach. Here is what he said:

«The Pope is correct, or to put it better, the best evidence we have supports the Pope’s statements. There is a consistent association, shown by our best studies, including the “Demographic Health Surveys”, funded by the United States, between greater availability and use of condoms and higher, not lower, HIV infection rates. This can be partly due to a phenomenon known as “risk compensation”, which means that when one uses a ‘risk-reducing technology’ like condoms, one often loses the benefit (risk reduction) by “compensating” or taking greater chances than one would without the risk-reduction technology».

 

The legacy of Sister Miriam Duggan: investing in people

Sister Duggan embodied this moral direction, leveraging a deep cultural change: promoting a conscious life choice, not dumping crates of condoms on African heads.

In recent years, the Irish nun had moved to Kenya, where she ran the “Mother Kevin Community School” in the poor Huruma neighbourhood on the outskirts of Nairobi.

She leaves a legacy that goes beyond the numbers: a call to invest in people, on cultural transformation, on education and on relationships founded on responsibility.