According to research released on Wednesday by health officials, the number of deaths from overdoses in the US related to the potent artificial opioid fentanyl increased by 279% between 2016 and 2021.
Investigators aimed to find patterns in fatalities caused by drugs using the 5 most frequently used opioids and stimulants: fentanyl, heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, and oxycodone. The country is still hurting from ongoing deaths due to drug overdoses.
As reported by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of fatalities containing fentanyl — the drug that is frequently used — increased from 6 per 100,000 individuals to 22 per 100,000 in 5 years.
As the primary researcher and a health economist at the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, Merianne Rose Spencer remarked, “This remains to be an issue of risk health in the United States which we must keep tracking.”