MMWR: Fentanyl Found in Most OD Victims in 10 States
The report showed almost 3,000 of the people who died of overdoses in 10 states during the second half of 2016 tested positive for fentanyl and more than 700 tested positive for drugs that have similar chemical structures to fentanyl, known as fentanyl analogs.
More than half of the 5,152 people in 10 states who died of opioid overdoses during the second half of 2016 tested positive for fentanyl, according to new data published Oct. 27 in CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report Early Release.
The report showed almost 3,000 of those people tested positive for fentanyl and more than 700 tested positive for drugs that have similar chemical structures to fentanyl, known as fentanyl analogs – including the extremely potent carfentanil, which is used to sedate large animals.
CDC said this was the first report on data from the State Unintentional Drug Overdose Reporting System, which tracks fatal opioid overdoses and is a component of CDC's Enhanced State Opioid Overdose Surveillance program. CDC researchers examined opioid overdose deaths from July 1 to Dec. 31, 2016, in 10 states: Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
CDC recently released two Health Alert Network advisories on fentanyl and fentanyl analogs: https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/han00395.asp and https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/han00350.asp, and it has funded 32 states and Washington, D.C. through the Enhanced State Opioid Overdose Surveillance program to produce more timely data on fatal and nonfatal opioid overdoses, including circumstances of fatal overdoses, such as the specific drugs involved and route of drug administration.