Dr. Ruth Pfau — Google Doodle Celebrates Pakistan’s Mother Teresa’s 90th Birthday

Today’s Google Doodle celebrates Dr. Ruth Pfau’s 90th birthday, recognizing her dedication to eradicating leprosy from Pakistan, saving innumerable lives.

Who is Dr. Ruth Pfau?

Dr. Ruth Katherina Martha Pfau HI, RM, HP, NQA, SQA was a German-born Pakistani Christian religious woman of the Society of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary, and a Physician. She moved from Germany to Pakistan in 1961 and dedicated over 55 years of her life battling leprosy in Pakistan. Pakistan respected her with a range of awards including the Hilal-i-Pakistan, Hilal-i-Imtiaz, Nishan-i-Quaid-i-Azam, and the Sitara-i-Quaid-i-Azam.

Known as “Pakistan’s Mother Teresa”, Dr. Ruth Pfau contributed in establishing 157 leprosy clinics crosswise over Pakistan, that treated more than 56,780 individuals.

Dr. Ruth Pfau was born in 1929 in Germany’s Leipzig. “I could not believe that humans could live in such conditions,” Dr. Pfau had apparently said after first seeing the sights of a leper colony in Pakistan. In her early life at 29 years old, Dr. Ruth Pfau had met with a concentration camp survivor, spurring in her a desire to become a nun.

Dr. Ruth Pfau was on a trip to India when she was held up in Pakistan over visa issues. This is the point at which she made a visit to the Marie Adelaide Leprosy Clinic in Pakistan’s Karachi. The visit demonstrated to be a life-changing one for Dr. Ruth Pfau.

The situation of a patient, who was crawling on his hands and feet at the clinic, especially got Dr. Ruth Pfau’s consideration. “He must have been my age-I was at this time not yet 30-and he crawled on hands and feet into this dispensary, acting as if this was quite normal,” she observed.

Stirred by the sights in the clinic, Dr. Ruth Pfau raised funds to upgrade the clinic and started to construct a network of more than 150 modern medical centres, including physiotherapy units, workshops to manufacture artificial limbs, and homes for the handicapped.

In Pakistan, Dr. Ruth Pfau additionally began the nation’s first Leprosy Technicians’ course in 1965 to battle the stigma that is related to the disease.

Her endeavors yielded incredible outcomes in battling leprosy in Pakistan. The World Health Organization pronounced the disease, otherwise called Hansen’s disease, leprosy is brought about by a bacterial infection that would now be able to be prevented and cured, however, the disease has historically made sufferers be ostracized and stigmatized for disfiguration, to be under control in 1965, a lot sooner than different countries in Asia.

Dr. Ruth Pfau got various accolades and was praised nationally and internationally. She was accordingly often contrasted with Mother Teresa.

The Google Doodle, to respect her tremendously huge contribution to battle the disease, demonstrates an animation of Dr. Ruth Pfau looking after a leprosy patient as the sun sets behind them. Google has additionally released various other early designs of the Google Doodle indicating Dr. Ruth Pfau outside Karachi’s Marie Adelaide Leprosy Clinic and a picture of a smiling Dr. Pfau against the backdrop of the city of Karachi.