Vervain - you've probably heard of it and its healing capabilities for treating a common cold but now people are looking to it as a cure for COVID.
While there is no actual cure - or vaccine for that matter - experts in bush medicine have taken to making a daily drink out of the plant. We wanted to find out more, so Courtney Menzies spoke to a local herbalist to find out more.
If you've ever had a cold, your grandparents might have taken some leaves out of their yard, boiled them, and given you to drink. By the next day, you were probably feeling a lot better.
That's the magic of vervain - known locally "vervine", a common plant that is seen growing in damp areas, mainly near drains. And while it has been commonly used to treat colds and flus, people have turned to it to build their resistance against COVID-19.
Of course, there is no proof that it works, but just enter vervain on google, and you'll see how the plant's celebrity status as a cure-all for COVID has grown in the Caribbean and Africa. We wanted to find out more about the health properties of it, so we sat down with herbalist, and self-proclaimed healer, Regie of Regie's Herbal and Tea House.
Regie, Herbalist/Healer
"It's a green, long, pinnacle plant with purple pinnacle, purple flowers, very small, and thick roots and stem. The refer to it as scorpion tail because the pinnacle look like a scorpion tail, this is the pinnacle. In every one of my concoctions having to do with detox, I put it in it."
Vervine acts as a decongestant and is even known to be used for persons who have severe lung-related illnesses such as tuberculosis. While such a disease may be better left for a doctor's advice, Regie told us how he creates his detox to help people suffering from the common cold.
Regie, Herbalist/Healer
"A person with a lungs condition would normally tend to have an excess of mucus, so in the case of excess mucus I do what you call a cold detox, the purpose of a cold detox is to simply identify that the mucus is there and arrest the mucus, uproot the mucus, and discharge the mucus. Each and every part of the plant has its significant purpose, but when I do a detox I use the whole plant, the root the stem and the leaves."
It's a simple process but Regie emphasized the need to properly clean the plant before boiling it.
Regie, Herbalist/Healer
"You put the water to boil, and when the water start to spin at boiling point, then you put the vervine after cleaning the vervine, then you put the vervine inside the water. You can also do some warm water or squeeze a half a lime inside the hot water and just use a strainer and pour the lime water, the warm lime water, over the vervine. Then put it inside the boiling water."
"Don't have it boiling for over fifteen twenty minutes because the ength of it is going up through evaporation. You want the live component and the properties of the vervine so you keep it there for 5 minutes and then turn off the heat."
With it's proven health benefits, people have started flocking to the plant, drinking it regularly in an attempt to ward off COVID-19. But Regie says drinking too much can be dangerous:
Regie, Herbalist/Healer
"While I normally would say to people that tend to drink it is that just likewise you can get in excess of certain things that cause damage to your body, you can get in excess of that substance that maybe would work over the time and cause some issues in your body. So it's for you to identify what problem exists, consume, and leave alone. If you got a common cold, man, and you drink something or some vervine and the cold leaves you, you don't need to drink vervine 365 days for the year."
But in days like these - many have turned it into a daily potion or tonic - no less than the Minister of Utilities and Logistics told Facebook about his particular brew of papaya leaves, turmeric, ginger, garlic and onions - with that shot of vervine. It may not be the long awaited COVID vaccine, but believers says it's the next best thing.
Vervain, also known as Verbena, is also a known deterrent of vampires, and vampire lore says it burns them.
