New
figures by the US government show the rate of fatal drug overdoses in
the United States more than doubled since 1999, as authorities in
several parts of the country grapple with America’s continuing
opioid epidemic.
Rates
of fatal drug overdoses have dramatically increased since 1999,
rising from 6.1 deaths per 100,000 people to 16.3 deaths per 100,000
in 2015, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said
Friday.
Opioids
killed more than 33,000 Americans in 2015, more than any year on
record, the CDC said, which estimates that 91 Americans die every day
from an opioid overdose.
That
number is higher than the rate of death for suicides in the US, 13.4
deaths per 100,000, or the rate of death from car accidents, 11.1
deaths per 100,000 residents.
The
CDC report also shows that the number of deadly heroin overdoses in
the United States more than quadrupled from 2010 to 2015. But the
increase was not all due to opioids, the percent of drug deaths from
cocaine increased to 13 percent in 2015 compared to 11 percent in
2010. Americans between the ages of 45 to 54 had the highest rate of
fatal drug overdoses overall in 2015, with 30 deaths reported per
100,000.
The
report shows overdose deaths related to opioids are increasing at an
"incredible rate," said Dr. Caleb Alexander, a
co-director for the Johns Hopkins Center for Drug Safety and
Effectiveness. "Each year I think it's hard to imagine it
getting much worse and yet last year we had the highest number of
deaths on record," Alexander said.
More:
Comments
Post a Comment