'Flower' to combat malaria

[nebula]

'Flower' Restores Hope to Malaria's Smallest Victims

By Efrem Graham

News Anchor & Reporter

Monday, June 06, 2011

SAVANNAH, Ga. -- Summer means more mosquitoes. The pests are an annoyance in the United States, but they can be deadly in other parts of the world.

A mosquito sting can lead to diseases like malaria. According to figures from the World Health Organization, malaria kills nearly a million people every year.

Malaria nearly killed Emmanuel Clottey, a minister who once worked as missionary in Kenya.

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Kollars once witnessed a 5-year-old child die in Thailand from dengue fever, another vector-borne disease. . . . That moment in Thailand inspired Kollars to create MEVLABS, where he has spent more than a dozen years testing ways to reduce the mosquito population, which would ultimately mean fewer cases of malaria.

Persistence led Kollars to a bio pesticide called Bacillus Thuringiensis Israelensis (BTI). An Israeli scientist first discovered it in the 1940s to kill larvae before they hatched.

Kollars then discovered how to get BTI to kill actual mosquitoes.

"That bacteria in that mosquito was a gift from God to man to control mosquitoes," Kollars told CBN News.

Kollars soon joined forces with William "Rocky" Parker, CEO of MIT Holdings, Inc., a Savannah-based company.

The company is now helping to package Kollars' discovery into a bright plastic flower that attracts mosquitoes to the bait that kills them. The completed product is called "The ProVector."

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"I'm so blessed," he told CBN News. "God let me know what I am supposed to be doing."

"He said to me, 'Because of what you have done, because of your invention, tens of thousands of children will hear about the Gospel," he added. "Will hear about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.'"

Full report here