A moment that changed history

Patient recalls how Dr Ruth Pfau convinced a court that leprosy was not communicable

KARACHI: A courtroom filled with curious lawyers and litigants witnessed history in the making.

A soft-spoken German Christian missionary, Dr Ruth Pfau, bore on her shoulders the weight of the conviction to serve mankind. She even proved it in front of everyone - the judges, the lawyers and her critics.

The case was filed by residents opposed to the establishment of a treatment centre for 'untouchable' leprosy patients in Saddar - then the most developed locality in the city, inhabited by elite Karachiites.

Her patient, Abdul Majeed, still remembers how the foreign doctor used emotion to prove to everyone that these poor patients were no longer ‘untouchable’.





"The residents objected to the establishment of the treatment centre," the 66-year-old Bangladeshi patient told The Express Tribune. He was one of the patients at the centre. "They wanted the centre to be shifted from the residential area, fearing transmission of the disease," he said.

Following rounds of court hearings, during which the petitioners stuck to their plea to get the centre relocated, the arguments from the lawyers defending the patients' rights seemed to be not strong enough in the face of such stringent opposition.

Dr Ruth Pfau worked tirelessly for the lepers of Pakistan. PHOTO: AFP

Dr Pfau decided to prove that the disease was not transmittable like other deadly diseases such as HIV or AIDS. "Dr Pfau took an ageing leprosy patient to the court," recalled Majeed.

"In the open courtroom proceedings, she took blood from the patient and injected it in her own body," he said, with shiny eyes as he recalled the moment as if it were just yesterday.



"This [along with other evidence] led the judges to believe that the disease was not dangerous and they ruled in favour of running the treatment centre," he said.

“Dr Pfau did the best service for mankind," he said, paying tribute to the missionary who dedicated her

life to the eradication of leprosy from Pakistan, which is believed to be the first country in the region to be granted leprosy-free status by the World Health Organisation.