Google honours Pakistan's Mother Teresa

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Source: Vatican Media/Google

On Monday, Google paid homage to Sr Ruth Pfau, a German-born Catholic nun credited with eradicating leprosy from Pakistan. The tech giant marked the revered nun on her 90th birth anniversary with a special Google Doodle - the graphic logo at the top of the Google search engine.

The doodle depicts Sr Ruth tending to a patient. The company said it was honouring her because she "devoted herself to eradicating leprosy from Pakistan, saving countless lives."

Often described as 'Pakistan's Mother Teresa', Sr Ruth died in Karachi on 10 August 2017, at the age of 87. She was laid to rest on 19 August, following full state honours, including a 19-gun salute, for her priceless service.

Born on 9 September 1929, in Leipzig, Sr Ruth Pfau studied medicine in the 1950s at the universities of Mainz and Marburg in then West Germany. After her graduation, she joined the Daughters of the Heart of Mary, who sent her as a missionary to India.

On her way, she stopped in Karachi on March 8, 1960, and was held up because of a visa problem. It was here that she became involved in working with people affected by leprosy or Hansen's Disease.

In 1961 she went to Vellore, South India to train in the treatment of Leprosy patients. She returned to Karachi to organise and expand the Leprosy Control Programme. The Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre in Karachi, which was Pakistan's first hospital dedicated to treating the disease, today has 157 branches across the country, that have helped more than 56,000 leprosy patients.

Sr Ruth was given numerous honours and recognition in Pakistan and abroad for her humanitarian services. Germany awarded her the Order of Merit in 1969. In 1979, the Pakistani government appointed her Federal Advisor on Leprosy to the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare. The Pakistani government honoured her with the Hilal-e-Imtiaz in 1979 and the Hilal-e-Pakistan in 1989. She was granted Pakistani citizenship in 1988. In 2002 she won the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award, regarded as Asia's Nobel prize.

Read more about Sr Ruth here:www.google.com/doodles/dr-ruth-pfaus-90th-birthday