Karachi,
\nDr Ruth Pfau, a German doctor popularly known as Pakistan\u2019s \u2018Mother Teresa\u2019 for dedicating her life to eradicate leprosy in the country, died on Thursday at a private hospital in Karachi. She was 87.<\/p>\n
She died after a prolonged age-related illness.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
She was born in 1929 in Germany and lived through the horrors of the World War II.<\/p>\n
Pfau joined the Society of Daughters of the Heart of Mary and was assigned to go to India but landed in Karachi for a brief stay due to some visa problems.<\/p>\n
Her interaction with leprosy patients in the port city motivated her to change the plan and stay rest of life in Pakistan to help the patients.<\/p>\n
She was 29 when landed in Karachi for the first time. She was awarded the Hilal-e-Imtiaz – Pakistan\u2019s second highest civilian award – in 1979, the Hilal-e-Pakistan in 1989.<\/p>\n
She was also awarded the Staufer Medal at the German consulate Karachi in 2015.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said Pfau \u201cmay have been born in Germany, but her heart was always in Pakistan\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cDr Ruth came to Pakistan at the dawn of a young nation, looking to make lives better for those afflicted by disease, and in doing so, found herself a home,\u201d Abbasi said, praising her courage and services.<\/p>\n
The funeral mass will be held on August 19 at St Patrick\u2019s Cathedral, and thereafter will be laid to rest in the Christian Cemetery (Gora Qabristan).<\/p>\n
German embassy said in a statement that German ambassador Martin Kobler expressed his heartfelt condolences and sympathies to the representative of the Maria Adelaide Leprosy Centre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Karachi, Dr Ruth Pfau, a German doctor popularly known as Pakistan\u2019s \u2018Mother Teresa\u2019 for dedicating her life to eradicate leprosy in the country, died on Thursday at a private hospital in Karachi. She was 87. She died after a prolonged age-related illness. Dr Pfau first visited Pakistan in 1960 and was so touched by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1844,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1843"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1845,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1843\/revisions\/1845"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}