ISLAMABAD, Aug 10 (APP): Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday paid tribute to late German-born Dr Ruth Pfau on her 5th death anniversary for spending her life to treat leprosy patients in Pakistan and said that role models like her reinforced faith in humanity.
On his Twitter handle, the prime minister said a life spent in the service of others was a life well lived. Dr Ruth Pfau made Pakistan her home and served the people with heart and soul.
Dr Ruth Katherina Martha Pfau, MD was born on September 9, 1929 in Leipzig, Germany. She studied medicine in 1957 and subsequently joined the Order of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary, whose motherhouse is in Paris.
She was hailed as the “Mother Teresa of Pakistan” for her pivotal role in containing leprosy. She died in a hospital in Karachi on this day during 2017. She was 87.
She was honoured with Hilal-i-Pakistan-, Hilal-i-Imtiaz-, Nishan-i-Quaid-i-Azam-, and the Sitara-i-Quaid-i-Azam award as acknowledgement of her services for the ailing humanity in Pakistan.
Dr. Pfau had joined the Marie Adelaide Leprosy Center, opened in 1956 in Karachi slums. Later, she soon transformed it into the hub of a network of 157 medical centers that treated tens of thousands of Pakistanis infected with leprosy.
Funded mostly by German, Austrian and Pakistani donors, the center and its satellite clinics also treated victims of the 2000 drought in Balochistan, the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir and devastating floods in 2010.
