Girls gather wood in Darzo where the Bye, Bye Malaria Society has been using a special tea to help eradicate malaria. Photo Courtesy of Bye, Bye Malaria Society

Malaria society researches unique tea to combat disease

Efforts could lead to drop in malaria cases around the world

VANCOUVER, BC—A Canadian organization is determined to eliminate malaria one cup of tea at a time.

Artemisia annua, a plant native to Asia, is used to produce anti-malarial drugs; the Bye, Bye Malaria Society maintains that regularly drinking tea steeped from the plant can cure and prevent malaria. It is an inexpensive solution for the poor, and the Society is conducting experiments in India to determine its effectiveness.

Stuart Spani, president of the Bye, Bye Malaria Society, learned about simple malaria clinics, called ZoClinics, operating in Mizoram, India in 2005. He was inspired to help. In 2012, Spani and his grandson visited five countries in Africa to set up a network for establishing ZoClinics there.

“It was at this point I recruited four friends and formed the Bye, Bye Malaria Society,” says Spani. “The name came from the fact that when the first African ZoClinic technicians received their microscopes, one held hers up and proclaimed ‘Bye, bye malaria!’”

Spani learned about Artemisia annua from missionaries at Mission Fest Vancouver; one was from Africa and another from Indonesia. They were both using the plant as a cure and preventative for malaria.

“I began to research this plant and our society started to work closely with a German group called Anamed,” Spani says. “The founder, Dr. Martin Hirt, has a doctorate in pharmacy and had worked as a medical missionary in Congo for six years. While there he found modern medicines were either unavailable or too expensive for the poor to use and he made a deep study of traditional medicines.”

Spani says he was encouraged by Anamed’s success stories, among them a patient who had repeat malaria every month for 10 years, but who has been free of malaria for more than four years after being treated with Artemisia.

“I traveled to Mizoram this past March with the plan to conduct an experiment in one village this year, and begin to build a network to attempt to eradicate malaria in the entire state by 2016,” says Spani.

The Society initially went to the village of Darzo, though the experiment grew when two villages nearby heard about it and wanted to be included.

“A similar experiment has also been set up and planting has started in five Anglican dioceses in Rwanda, Africa, and we are in early talks to do the same thing in both Togo, Africa, and Sierra Leone, Africa,” says Spani.

As a Christian organization, Spani says the Bye, Bye Malaria Society believes Christian principles can solve problems and are determined to make agricultural villages better places to live.

“No one has tried using [the tea] for eradication on this scale, but we do know that even if it doesn’t eradicate malaria it will reduce the amount dramatically,” says Spani. “We will use the internet to let the world know the results and pray that many others will follow the example.”

See www.malaria-defeated.org for more information.

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