Morphine Could Cure TB


A research team from National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research has discovered that morphine could battle out tuberculosis infection in mice. The team found that morphine exerted maximum effect at a dose of 5 mg per kg body weight of the mice.

Morphine boosted the immune cells of mice and initiated macrophage-mediated protective mechanism against mice tuberculosis. The study has shown that morphine alleviated mice tuberculosis infection at a dose dependent manner. The study results might be helpful in developing new opioid-like chemicals against tuberculosis, write the researchers in 30 January 2008 issue of Life Sciences.


Every second someone new is infected with TB. Overall, one-third of the world’s population is currently infected with TB. People with HIV and TB infection are much more likely to develop TB. In 2005, 8.8 million people fell ill with TB and 1.6 million died from it. TB is primarily a disease of people living in the developing world: 98% of TB deaths are in low- and medium-income countries. But no country is TB-free.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the largest number of new TB cases in 2005 occurred in the South-East Asia Region, which accounted for 34% of incident cases globally. However, the estimated incidence rate in sub-Saharan Africa is nearly twice that of the South-East Asia Region, at nearly 350 cases per 100 000 population. Add to it emergence of drug resistant TB bugs. Under these circumstances, the present study is important as it highlights a novel way out to get rid of TB.