Help save lives: Co-prescribe naloxone to patients at risk of overdose
Naloxone saves lives
The nation’s opioid epidemic claimed more than 33,000
lives in 2015, but that figure would have been even
higher if it wasn’t for the life-saving opioid overdose
antidote naloxone. For more than 40 years, naloxone has
been used to reverse the effects of opioid overdose.
Timely administration of naloxone has saved thousands
of lives:
- From 1996 through June 2014, organizations that provide community-based overdose prevention services, including provision of naloxone to laypersons, recorded more than 26,000 opioid overdose reversals in the United States.
- In the first 8-weeks of 2017, the number of naloxone prescriptions written by physicians increased 340 percent compared to the same 8- week period in 2016. The number of physicians prescribing naloxone has also increased 475 percent over the same time period.2
- When states enact laws to increase access to naloxone, there is “a 9 to 11 percent reduction in opioid-related deaths.”3
- More than 1,200 law enforcement programs in the United States now supply naloxone to their personnel– resulting in thousands of lives saved.
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