Pakistan’s ‘Mother Teresa’, leprosy fighter Dr Ruth Pfau

Ruth Pfau, a German doctor and nun who dedicated her life to eradicating leprosy in Pakistan and has been described as the country’s Mother Teresa, has died in Karachi aged 87.

She died in hospital after being admitted on Friday, her order said.

Dr Pfau witnessed leprosy in Pakistan for the first time in 1960 and returned to set up clinics across the country.

Her efforts meant that in 1996 the disease was declared to have been brought under control.

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said Dr Pfau “may have been born in Germany, but her heart was always in Pakistan”.

“Dr Ruth came to Pakistan here 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,” he said, praising her courage and loyalty.

Harald Meyer-Porzky from the Ruth Pfau Foundation in Wurzburg said Dr Pfau had “given hundreds of thousands of people a life of dignity”.

Dr Pfau was born in Leipzig in 1929 and saw her home destroyed by bombing during the Second World War. She studied medicine and was later sent to southern India by her order, the Daughters of the Heart of Mary, but a visa issue meant she became stuck in Karachi, where she first became aware of leprosy.

She received numerous honours for her work, including the Hilal-e-Imtiaz – Pakistan’s second highest civilian award – in 1979, the Hilal-e-Pakistan in 1989 and the German Staufer Medal in 2015.

Ruth Pfau died in Karachi at the age of 87.