As the COVID-19 pandemic killed more than half a million Americans, it also quietly ignited what was already one of the country’s biggest public health crises: drug addiction.
The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention estimates that more than 87,000 people died from drug overdoses in the twelve months ended September 2020 – the latest figures available.
The toll is the highest number of overdose deaths ever recorded in a year since the opioid epidemic began in the 1990s, reports The New York Times.
Mortality from overdose was seen to decline slightly in 2018 for the first time in decades.
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Nationally, the CDC attributed the nationwide increase in overdose deaths to interruptions in daily life caused by the pandemic, as well as street formulations associated with the powerful painkiller fentanyl.
Coronavirus has disrupted many things that people who use opioids rely on, such as using drugs with friends who may relive it or seek help if someone seems to be overdosing.
The pandemic also forced drug users to rely on different sources for their drugs, so they may not have been as aware of what they were getting.
“Traders are tying these non-opioid drugs with cheaper, yet powerful, opioids to make a bigger profit,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said at a national addiction conference last week.
“Someone who is addicted to a stimulant like cocaine or methamphetamine does not tolerate opioids,” Volkow added.
The pandemic further propelled the Americans who were already in the shadows into isolation, economic fragility and fear, while at the same time increasing the treatment and support systems that could save them.
Experts believe the devastation is an accusation of the public health infrastructure, which has not been able to combat the duel crises of COVID-19 and addiction.
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“The data points confirm something I believe is that people who have already used drugs have started using them at a higher risk – especially alone and of a less reliable supply,” said Brendan Saloner, associate professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health dealing with access to addiction says.
Health care interruptions have exacerbated the effects of drug use on injections – HIV, hepatitis C, deadly bacterial infections that chew meat to the bone and cause people in their 20s to have amputations and open-heart surgeries.
“Because health departments spend so much on COVID, some programs have had to cut their budgets,” said Sara Glick, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Washington. “This may mean you see fewer participants or interrupt their HIV and hepatitis C testing.”
The Office of National Drug Control Policy last week outlined its priorities for the growing drug crisis in the country. The measures include addressing ‘systemic inequalities’ in prevention, treatment and recovery.
The U.S. Rescue Plan Act provides $ 1.5 billion for drug prevention and treatment, as well as $ 30 million in funding for local services that benefit addicts, including drug exchange programs.
President Joe Biden’s new surgeon general, Dr Vivek Murthy, has pledged responsibility, although Biden has yet to appoint a permanent ‘drug tsar’.
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“As a child, I watched them make house calls in the middle of the night and wake up early to visit patients in the hospital before going to their office,” he told senators during his confirmation hearing last month about his parents in Miami. during his youth. “I have tried to live by the lessons they embody: that we have an obligation to help each other whenever we can, to alleviate suffering wherever we find it, and to give back to this country that lives their lives and made my life, and the lives of my children possible. ‘
He said he would make the recurring opioid overdose crisis his top priority.
“We cannot neglect the other public health crises exacerbated by this pandemic, particularly the opioid epidemic, mental illness and inequalities regarding race and geographic health,” the gentle doctor told senators.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.