Deaths from drug overdoses have risen substantially in the United States and set a new death toll in the year ending May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced.
The CDC Health Alerts Network released a report on Thursday that said there were 81,230 deaths from drug overdoses during that time as of June 2019.
“This represents a worsening of the drug overdose epidemic in the United States and is the largest number of drug overdoses over a 12-month period ever recorded,” the agency said.
The CDC noted that “after declining by 4.1% from 2017 to 2018, the number of overdose deaths increased by 18.2% from the twelve months that ended in June 2019.”
Death toll from drug overdoses was already rising before early 2020, but accelerated once the COVID-19 pandemic stalled, according to the CDC.
Synthetic opioids have been the main source of increases in overdose deaths, the agency continued, and that “the 12-month death toll from synthetic opioids increased by 38.4% over the twelve months that ended in June 2019 compared to the 12 months that ended in May 2020 “.
The CDC recommends expanding the use of naloxone, a drug that treats overdoses during emergencies and that people should take overdose prevention classes.