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Dr Ruth Pfau's 90th Birthday: Google Creates Heartwarming Doodle To Honour Her Incredible Life

Google creates a heartwarming doodle of Dr Ruth Katherina Martha Pfau to honour her incredible life and work on her 90th birth anniversary.

Dr Ruth Pfaus 90th Birthday

Fondly known as "Mother Teresa of Pakistan", she was a physician and nun, and was born in Leipzig, Germany on 9 September 1929.

Pfau studied medicine in 1957 in eastern Germany and then joined the Order of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary.

In 1960, while she was travelling to India, Dr Ruth visited Marie Adelaide Leprosy Clinic (MALC) located on McLoed road in Karachi (in Pakistan), which was run by her congregation in the "Beggar Colony".

What the 29-year-old physician saw there, moved her so much that she decided to stay there for the rest of her life.

Shocked by the precarious state of people affected by leprosy, she pledged to provide all the necessary treatment and proper assistance to these people for the rest of her life. This became the mission of her life and she never stopped helping them after that. Five years later, she also started the first Leprosy Technicians' course.

Once Dr Ruth Pfau said, "If I were to be incarnated, I would like to be in Pakistan again".

She along with her efficient army proved to be so effective that in 1996, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that leprosy in Pakistan is under control.

From a small hut made to treat people suffering from leprosy, MALC is now one of the largest NGOs in Pakistan. Currently, it is a 64 bedded hospital as well. Apart from this, their 157 health centres have teamed up with provincial health departments and are active in Sindh, Balochistan, KPK, Gilgit Baltistan and Azad Kashmir.

Even though she passed away at 87 on 10 August 2017 at a hospital in Karachi owing to heart disease, Dr Ruth will stay alive at the very core of our hearts, always and forever.