In Brief: Routine Treatment of Opioid Abuse Can Raise an Epidemic

To help stem the nationwide opioid epidemic and the related increases in HIV, hepatitis C, and other infections, caregivers Health care should regularly screen and treat patients for opioid abuse when they come to clinics and hospitals. of five recommendations described in a document published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The paper supports a newly published document that describes the work of a workshop held this spring by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine.

"Treatment can save lives," said one of the authors of the paper, Dr. Todd Korthuis of Oregon Health & Science University. "The national opioid epidemic can turn around if we accept opioid use disorder as a chronic disease that requires treatment rather than a moral problem or the result of opioids. a weak will. "

The workshop highlighted one of the many disastrous consequences of the opioid epidemic: more people are turning to injecting drug use after the '' opioid epidemic ''. stopping their opioid prescriptions, which has resulted in an increase in life-threatening infections of the skin, joints, blood, bones and more. Serious infections require lengthy and costly hospital treatment, but most hospital staff do not routinely tackle the root cause: addiction.

Korthuis co-wrote the paper with Dr. Sandra A. Springer of Yale. School of Medicine and Dr. Carlos del Rio of the School of Medicine of Emory University.