{"id":61993,"date":"2025-09-06T20:17:24","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T18:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uccronline.it\/eng\/?p=61993"},"modified":"2025-09-06T20:17:24","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T18:17:24","slug":"farewell-to-sister-duggan-stopped-aids-with-fidelity-and-abstinence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uccronline.it\/eng\/2025\/09\/06\/farewell-to-sister-duggan-stopped-aids-with-fidelity-and-abstinence\/","title":{"rendered":"Farewell to Sister Duggan: Stopped AIDS with Fidelity and Abstinence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-128510\" src=\"https:\/\/www.uccronline.it\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/miriam_duggan-1.webp\" alt=\"miriam duggan preservativo aids\" width=\"604\" height=\"317\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>Irish nun who brought <strong>AIDS below 10%<\/strong> dies at 84 after teaching virtuous behaviours without the need for condoms. <strong>Benedict XVI<\/strong> also spoke in favour of the method (defended by scientists).<\/i><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Sister <mark><strong>Miriam Duggan<\/strong><\/mark>, an Irish nun devoted to the poorest in Africa, passed away at the age of 84.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">For more than half a century Sister Duggan worked mainly in <strong>Uganda<\/strong>, where she promoted an <strong>HIV prevention<\/strong> program based on premarital abstinence and marital fidelity, rather than the use of the <strong>condom<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In that country, one of the hardest hit by the epidemic, she managed to reduce the infection rate from about 29% <strong>to less than 10%<\/strong> between 1991 and 2002.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>The method of Sister Duggan: fidelity and abstinence<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">For this reason in 2006 <strong>Harvard University<\/strong> and the <strong>Holy Cross College<\/strong> in the United States decided to <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.uccronline.it\/2011\/12\/03\/premiata-suora-cattolica-per-aver-sconfitto-laids-in-uganda-senza-condom\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">honour her<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, while in 2008 the nun received a recognition award from the then <strong>Ugandan president<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Her initiative \u2014 known as <i>\u201cYouth Alive\u201d<\/i> \u2014 was not only a medical response, but a solid <strong>educational and social proposal<\/strong>, centered on individual responsibility.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The figure of Sister Duggan fits into a broader context, that of the various strategies adopted in the 1990s to <strong>contain AIDS<\/strong>. In Uganda, the shorthand formula <strong>\u201cABC\u201d<\/strong> \u2013 Abstinence (\u201cAbstinence\u201d), Fidelity (\u201cBe faithful\u201d), Conditioning the use of condoms (\u201cuse Condoms\u201d) \u2013 was at the center of a national campaign supported by the media, schools and Catholic communities.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Benedict XVI, defended by researchers on condoms<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Even <strong>Benedict XVI<\/strong> expressed support for the method used by <strong>Sister Miriam Duggan<\/strong>, causing an international stir.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">However <strong>Daniel Halperin<\/strong>, a researcher from Harvard, <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.uccronline.it\/2011\/02\/14\/harvard-conferma-benedetto-xvi-contro-laids-meglio-la-fedelta-del-condom\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">gave<\/a><\/em><\/strong> full backing to Pope Ratzinger, suggesting that it is indeed the <i>\u00ab<strong>reduction<\/strong> in sexual partners\u00bb<\/i> that leads <i>\u00abto a decrease in new AIDS infections\u00bb<\/i>, and not a massive spread of condoms.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In fact, a study by the <strong>University of Navarra<\/strong> <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.uccronline.it\/2010\/07\/05\/gli-scienziati-laids-si-vince-con-la-fedelta-di-coppia-non-con-il-preservativo\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">concluded<\/a><\/em><\/strong> precisely that attempts to stop the spread of HIV in Africa had little success also because of <strong>the insistence on condoms<\/strong>, which encouraged a significant number of people to engage in multiple sexual relationships, increasing the chances of infection.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Virologist and microbiologist <strong>Carlo-Federico Perno<\/strong> <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.uccronline.it\/2011\/12\/17\/il-virologo-perno-%C2%ABla-risposta-allaids-non-e-il-preservativo-ma-leducazione%C2%BB\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">explained<\/a><\/em><\/strong> in turn that <i>\u00abit is not possible to eliminate a disease often linked to behaviours, <strong>without changing the behaviours<\/strong> themselves\u00bb<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Also <strong>Edward C. Green<\/strong>, director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at Harvard\u2019s Center for Population and Development Studies, <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/blogs\/ni\/2009\/03\/aids_expert_who_defended_the_p.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">openly supported<\/a><\/em><\/strong> Benedict XVI\u2019s approach. Here is what he said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>\u00abThe Pope is correct, or to put it better, the best evidence we have <strong>supports<\/strong> the Pope\u2019s statements. There is a consistent association, shown by our best studies, including the \u201cDemographic Health Surveys\u201d, funded by the United States, between greater availability and use of condoms and <strong>higher<\/strong>, not lower, HIV infection rates. This can be partly due to a phenomenon known as <strong>\u201crisk compensation\u201d<\/strong>, which means that when one uses a \u2018risk-reducing technology\u2019 like condoms, one often loses the benefit (risk reduction) by \u201ccompensating\u201d or <strong>taking greater chances<\/strong> than one would without the risk-reduction technology\u00bb<\/i>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>The legacy of Sister Miriam Duggan: investing in people<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Sister Duggan embodied this moral direction, leveraging a <strong>deep cultural change<\/strong>: promoting a conscious life choice, not dumping crates of condoms on African heads.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In recent years, the Irish nun had moved to <strong>Kenya<\/strong>, where she ran the <em>\u201cMother Kevin Community School\u201d<\/em> in the poor Huruma neighbourhood on the outskirts of Nairobi.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">She leaves a legacy that goes beyond the numbers: a call <strong>to invest in people<\/strong>, on cultural transformation, on education and on relationships founded on responsibility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Irish nun who brought AIDS below 10% dies at 84 after teaching virtuous behaviours without the need for condoms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":61,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1846,1849,1848,1850,1851,1847,1844,1845],"class_list":["post-61993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newness","tag-aids-condom","tag-aids-fidelity","tag-condom-aids","tag-couple-aids","tag-couple-fidelity","tag-hiv-condom","tag-miriam-duggan","tag-miriam-duggan-aids"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.6 - 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