CINCINNATI -- Officials hope the start of a first-of-its-kind naloxone distribution initiative will help prevent opiate-related overdose deaths in Hamilton County.
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, Sen. Rob Portman, and county and health officials announced on Thursday the start of the Hamilton County Narcan Distribution Collaborative, a program that will increase naloxone supply in Hamilton County by over 400 percent.
Hamilton County Health Commissioner Tim Ingram said the project has not been attempted before in the United States. The initiative will increase Hamilton County's naloxone supply from 7,000 units to 30,000 units.
“I don’t have to tell anyone in this room that opioid abuse disorder has become an enormous problem nationally, statewide and here in Hamilton County,” Ingram said.
WATCH the full news conference in the player below.
The coroner's office recorded 100 more opiate-related overdose deaths in 2016 than 2015, Hamilton County Coroner Dr. Lakshmi Sammarco said in a May news conference.
Sammarco said 342 of the 403 overdoses in 2016 involved at least one kind of opiate.
DeWine called the area’s grapple with opioids a “mature drug epidemic.”
“How many people we’re losing a day now, I don’t think anybody really knows,” DeWine said.
DeWine said the program would not only benefit those battling addiction.
“When we look at our opiate epidemic, it is not just the number of people who are dying everyday -- it’s the babies who are being born everyday addicted, it’s the children who are in foster care because one or both parents are drug addicts … our jails have become detox center, our courts are overflowing,” DeWine said.
DeWine has urged police departments in Ohio to carry naloxone, as police officers are often first on the scene, particularly in rural areas.
“I have urged people to carry naloxone, No. 1 because it’s the right thing to do. I understand there is a fatigue about naloxone, I understand it works to enable people, and that may be true in cases. But I think we have a moral obligation to try to save people,” DeWine said.
Dr. Shawn Ryan, president and chief medical officer of BrightView Health, said the program will use Adapt Pharma’s Narcan nasal spray because the antidote has the appropriate dosage to revive people from powerful opioids like fentanyl.
Fentanyl, a drug 50 to 100 more potent than heroin, was a factor in the deaths of 344 people in Hamilton County in 2015, according to data from the Hamilton County Coroner's Office.
Mike Kelly, president of U.S. Operations for Adapt Pharma, said setting the dose at 4mg was originally a “bold and risky” move, but the higher dosage is necessary to revive people from a fentanyl or carfentanil overdose.
“The antidote needs to match the drug,” Kelly said.
A goal of the initiative, Kelly said, is to make naloxone as affordable and accessible as possible.
Sammarco said Narcan has saved a “considerable” amount of people in Hamilton County over the last several years.
The availability of the drug -- whether it be with family members or first responders -- has helped curb opiate-related overdose deaths, she said.
In 2015, first responders administered 2,000 doses (or 4,700 milligrams) of Narcan in Hamilton County, according to the Cincinnati Fire Department. First responders used 6,500 milligrams in 2016, Sammarco said.
Tim Ingram, Hamilton County health commissioner; Dr. Shawn Ryan, president and chief medical officer of BrightView Health; Dr. Michael Lyons, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and Mike Kelly, president of U.S. Operations for Adapt Pharma were at the news conference Thursday.
For resources and more heroin-related coverage, go to wcpo.com/heroin.
