President, Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), Muhammad Haroon Agar, paid tribute to Dr Ruth Pfau, Founder of Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre (MALC), who gave her entire life to Pakistan and for the cause to eliminate leprosy from the country.
During his visit to Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre (MALC), Agar met Dr Ruth Pfau and her team who apprised the KCCI president and his colleagues Ateequr Rehman and Zafar Saeed that Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre was one of the largest NGO in the country running Leprosy Elimination, TB & Blindness Control Programme and has its headquarters in Karachi. MALC serves as a secondary referral facility for Leprosy patients from all over Pakistan who are treated free of charge irrespective of caste or creed.
Dr Ruth Pfau apprised that the journey of Leprosy control in Pakistan started in 1956 in Karachi. In 1960, she joined the Leprosy work and gradually developed it into the National Leprosy Control Programme. The multi-pronged approach attended to the medical as well as the social problems of the patients, living in abject poverty and isolation. MALC has now grown into a country-wide Leprosy Control Programme, and is linked up with the Provincial Health Departments. -PR