Post by Logan on Mar 27, 2016 1:43:00 GMT -6
A powerful drug that’s sometimes laced with heroin is driving West Virginia overdose deaths to record levels.
Fatal overdoses related to fentanyl, an opioid that’s 100 times stronger than prescription morphine, nearly tripled last year compared to 2014.
“The number of deaths has gone to alarmingly high levels,” said Dr. Rahul Gupta, commissioner of West Virginia’s Bureau of Public Health. “With fentanyl, people are going into overdose and dying more quickly.”
West Virginia has the highest drug overdose death rate in the nation. At last count, 643 people had died of drug overdoses in West Virginia in 2015, the most drug deaths since 2011, when 656 fatalities were recorded, according to data released by the state Health Statistics Center last week.
See more at: www.wvgazettemail.com/news/20160327/fentanyl-fuels-rise-in-wv-overdose-deaths
Fatal overdoses related to fentanyl, an opioid that’s 100 times stronger than prescription morphine, nearly tripled last year compared to 2014.
“The number of deaths has gone to alarmingly high levels,” said Dr. Rahul Gupta, commissioner of West Virginia’s Bureau of Public Health. “With fentanyl, people are going into overdose and dying more quickly.”
West Virginia has the highest drug overdose death rate in the nation. At last count, 643 people had died of drug overdoses in West Virginia in 2015, the most drug deaths since 2011, when 656 fatalities were recorded, according to data released by the state Health Statistics Center last week.
See more at: www.wvgazettemail.com/news/20160327/fentanyl-fuels-rise-in-wv-overdose-deaths