Opioid overdoses 29% higher in 2020 than before the pandemic: study

A year ago, the United States was grappling with an epidemic – the scourge of opioid addiction, with more than 70,000 lives lost to drug overdoses in 2019, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

The subject was at the center of public health, academic and political debates.

But it was quickly overshadowed by a new threat – the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the latest research, the opioid epidemic has not gone away. On the contrary, he was hiding in the shadows of the coronavirus pandemic, strengthening himself and taking advantage of a society now more vulnerable than ever.

In a large cross-sectional study published in JAMA Psychiatry on Feb. 3 that analyzed nearly 190 million emergency room (ED) visits, researchers found significantly higher rates of ED visits for opioid overdoses over the months. from March to October 2020 compared to the same dates in 2019. The study found that starting in mid-April, weekly rates of emergency room visits for drug overdoses increased by up to 45% compared to the same period in 2019.

Overall, emergency room visits for opioid overdoses increased 28.8% year over year.

While some survived these overdoses, many others were not so lucky.

“The increase in overdose deaths is concerning,” said Deb Houry, MD, MPH, director of the National Injury Prevention Center of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the rising rates of overdose deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The CDC said in December that the overdose death rate was accelerating during the pandemic, due to synthetic opioids, which had increased by 38.4% in the year to June 2020.

Opioid overdoses don’t exist in a vacuum; on the contrary, any force that threatens mental health makes society more vulnerable to the threat of drug addiction. For some, that force may be the fear of contracting COVID-19. For others, the stress of losing a job. And still others, the annoyance of being trapped in your home doing nothing.

“The disruption of daily life from the COVID-19 pandemic has hit hard those suffering from substance use disorders,” former CDC director Dr Robert Redfield said in December.

That same JAMA Psychiatry study found that emergency department visits for mental health issues, intimate partner violence, and child abuse and neglect increased during the same time period as suicide attempts.

While many lives have been saved with home controls, these savings were not without cost. As vaccines appear to have lit the end of this COVID-19 tunnel, America will face its growing problem of social isolation and mental illness in the internet age, experts say.

“Social distancing has forced many 12 Step programs, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, to suspend their meetings. The need for effective drug treatment has never been greater, ”said Linville M. Meadows, MD, physician and author on addictions.

Nicholas Nissen, MD, is a clinical researcher and resident psychiatric physician at Harvard Medical School and a physician in the ABC News Medical Unit.