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Overdose Rates On The Decline In West Virginia County
By: Associated Press
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HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (AP) – One West Virginia county has seen a 55 percent decrease in overdoses per month since September.
The Herald-Dispatch quotes Huntington Mayor Steve Williams as saying Cabell County is a long way from winning the war, but they’re starting to win some battles. The trend may be a tipping point for a county whose overdoses spiked from 480 in 2015 to 1,831 in 2017. If the current trend holds, the county could record 1,152 overdoses this year.
The mayor says the decline is the result, not the conclusion, of more than three years of efforts. Those efforts include a Quick Response Team that visits and refers each overdose victim to treatment and the public’s increased access to naloxone, the drug administered to reverse an overdose.