MALC - MARIE ADELAIDE LEPROSY CENTRE

Dr. RUTH PFAU PROFILE

Ruth Katherina Martha Pfau was born on September 9, 1929 in Leipzig, Germany.
She grew up seeing the horrors of the Second World War (1939-1945) during which her city was bombed and her home destroyed. When the war ended, millions of people had been killed or went missing. Her country, in a state of ruins was finally divided into East Germany and West Germany
In 1948 she had to cross the demarcation line illegally from East Germany (then under Russian occupation) to West Germany to pursue her education as a medical student.
In the 1950s she studied medicine at the universities of Mainz and Marburg in West Germany.
After her graduation she joined the catholic order of the 'Daughters of the Heart of Mary'.
In 1960 she was sent by her Order to India to take over a gynaecological station. On her way, she came to Karachi to acquire an Indian Visa. Here she visited the McLeod Leper Colony and decided to stay to serve the leprosy patients.
In 1961 she went to Vellore, South India to acquire training in the management of Leprosy.

She then returned to Karachi to organise and expand the Leprosy Control Programme.
In 1965, she and Dr. Zarina Fazelbhoy, a Pakistani dermatologist initiated the training programme for paramedical workers
1971, she had, in cooperation with the Provincial Governments, completed the network of treatment and control units in the Leprosy affected Provinces (Baluchistan, Sindh, NWFP), Northern Areas and Azad Kashmir, traveling to every nook and corner of the country.
1979, she was appointed Federal Advisor on Leprosy to the Government of Pakistan.
In 1996, Leprosy had been controlled in the country.
In 2006, she gave over to her successor, the Chief Executive Officer of MALC, Dr. Ashfaq Ali Khan.
She has authored four books in German about her work in Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan, where she first went in 1984. One of these books, 'To Light a Candle' was translated into English in 1987.
For her merits she received the highest awards from the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Government of Pakistan, as well as the Damien Dutton Award - USA (1999) and the Ramon Magsaysay Award - Philippines (2002).