The covid-19 pandemic is not the only public health crisis the United States is currently dealing with, as illustrated by new government data released this week. In 2019, there were nearly 71,000 deaths attributed to drug overdoses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the highest annual number to date. And it looks like this year will be even worse.
The figures come from a provisional count of mortality data collected from all states and territories and analyzed by the CDC. Although CDC tries to explain data gaps, such as reporting delays, the exact numbers may change by the time a final analysis is released. Still, the provisional data now covers the 12 months of 2019 and is unlikely to change significantly between now and the final report.
According to the CDC count, there were 70,980 drug overdose-related deaths, slightly above the 70,237 officially recorded deaths in 2017, currently the highest mark. As in previous years, most of these deaths involved opioids, with synthetic opioids like fentanyl linked to some 36,000 deaths (it’s worth noting that overdose deaths sometimes involve more than one drug).
In 2018, there was a slight decline in overdose deaths to around 68,000, raising hopes that the overall situation would begin to improve. But it seems that these gains may have been illusory. According to the Drug Policy Alliance, a nonprofit organization that advocates for greater use of harm reduction methods in drug policy, 2020 is unlikely to be any better given the far-reaching effects of pandemic so far.
While the surge in overdose deaths in the US in 2019 is devastating, it is not surprising, and there is reason to believe that these deaths will continue to rise in 2020 as a result of greed.-19 pandemic, which has increased isolation, disrupted drug supply and reduced access to harm reduction and treatment support, “Sheila Vakharia, deputy director of DPA’s Department of Research and Academic Participation, said in a statement sent to Gizmodo.
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In some areas of the country, there are already state reports of increased overdose deaths during the pandemic in recent years. Providers of sterile syringe exchange programs also have reported need to close or reduce their availability against blockages related to pandemics. Although changes have been made to make it easier for people to access medications like methadone, which help treat opioid use disorder, advocates have argument that these policies do not go far enough and force people to risk having covid-19 by going out in public or at risk of worsening their substance use disorder by staying home.
According to Vakharia, it is more essential than ever to duplicate overdose prevention approaches that have been shown to work, “such as keeping regulations relaxed for methadone and buprenorphine, allowing overdose prevention sites to open legally, and allocating federal funds to syringes. exchange and access to naloxone. “
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