Google Doodle honours nun who spent her life helping to eradicate leprosy in Pakistan

Google's homepage is honouring and celebrating the work of Dr Ruth Pfau on her 90th birthday who dedicated her life fighting leprosy in Pakistan.

Pakistan's Mother Teresa Dr Ruth Pfau head of a Pakistani charity fighting leprosy, meets people in the flood-affected Begna village in southern Pakistan. Source: ASIF HASSAN/AFP/Getty Images

Today Google is honouring Dr Ruth Pfau on her 90^th birthday for her work and dedication to eradicating leprosy in Pakistan.  

Dr Pfau was born in Germany in 1929 and was inspired to become a nun at age 29. On a visit to India in 1960, she became stranded in Karachi due to a visa issue.

This is when she visited a leper colony in Pakistan and empathized with the patients there. In an interview later in life, she recalled her first impressions of the colony by saying “I could not believe that humans could live in such conditions,”

Ruth Pfau (centre) after an award ceremony in Duesseldorf, Germany, 22 November 2012. Source: AAP

She was struck by the plight of one patient in particular: “He must have been my age— and he crawled on hands and feet into this dispensary, acting as if this was quite normal as if someone has to crawl there through that slime and dirt on hands and feet, like a dog.” Dr Pfau told BBC in 2010.   

She then dedicated the rest of her life to travel Pakistan, rescue patients and battle outbreaks of leprosy all over the country.

Google honours Dr Ruth Pfau on her 90th birth anniversary. Source: Google

In 1996 the United Nations World Health Organisation stated that Pakistan was one of the first countries in Asia to control leprosy cases. According to Dawn (Pakistan’s premier English newspaper), leprosy cases dropped significantly from 19,398 in the 1980s to 531 in 2016.

Dr Pfau passed away in August 2017 at the age of 87 and was given a state funeral.

A man lays a wreath on the grave of Ruth Pfau, as people visit to mark her death anniversary, in Karachi, Pakistan, 10 August 2018. Source: AAP

In recognition of her contributions to Pakistan Dr Pfau was awarded Hilal-e-Pakistan in 1989, the second-highest civilian award in Pakistan. Over the years she was also awarded  Hilal-e-Imtiaz, Nihsan-e-Quaid-Azam and Sitara-e-Quaid-i-Aza by the government of Pakistan.

In the honour of her first death anniversary, last year the state bank of Pakistan unveiled a Rs.50 commemorative coin in recognition of Dr Pfau’s work.

Her residence in Karachi has been turned into a museum for people to visit and learn more about her life and work towards humanity.

Last month the government of Pakistan also paid a tribute to Pakistan’s Mother Teresa on social media by celebrating her work through a video montage.