Ruth Pfau, Pakistan’s ‘Mother Teresa’ dies aged 87
August 12th, 2017
Ruth Pfau, a German nun who devoted her life to combatting leprosy in Pakistan, has died at the age of 87. Pfau, who was known locally as Pakistan’s Mother Teresa, came to the southern port city of Karachi in 1960 and spent half a century taking care of some of the country’s sickest and poorest people. Dr. Pfau first visited Pakistan in 1960 and was so touched by the plight of leprosy victims that she decided to stay forever in the country to treat them. The nun founded the Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre in Karachi in 1962 and later set up its branches in all provinces of Pakistan, including Gilgit-Baltistan, and treated over 50,000 families. Due to her tireless efforts, the World Health Organisation in 1996 declared Pakistan one of the first countries in Asia to be free of leprosy. She was born in 1929 in Germany and lived through the horrors of the World War II.