Opioid poisoning on the rise in Switzerland & More News Here

Researchers at ETH have proven that instances of opioid poisoning and the prescription of opioids have elevated sharply in Switzerland over the previous 20 years. Although the state of affairs isn’t as critical as in North America, the danger shouldn’t be underestimated.

Since the early 2000s the U.S. has been in the grip of an opioid disaster that has been exacerbated by the COVID pandemic—in 2021, greater than 100,000 individuals died of an opioid overdose in the nation. There are growing indicators that the identical disaster is taking maintain in Europe. Initial research from the Netherlands and Denmark have drawn consideration to the rise in the use of the robust opioid oxycodone. This substance, initially bought beneath the title OxyContin, was the main driver of the opioid disaster in the U.S.

However, hardly any figures can be found on the use of opioids in Switzerland in current years—significantly associated to the potential hurt. A analysis group led by Andrea Burden, Professor of Pharmacoepidemiology at ETH Zurich, has now analyzed Swiss information in order to evaluate the pattern in Switzerland.

Publishing in The Lancet Regional Health—Europe, the researchers evaluated the growth in the variety of emergency calls regarding opioid poisoning to Tox Info Suisse, the Swiss data heart for poisoning, between 2000 and 2019. They additionally used information from IQVIA and supplied by PharmaSuisse, the Swiss pharmacists’ affiliation, on opioid gross sales from Swiss pharmacies and shelling out physicians.

The information makes it clear that the downside is changing into more and more extreme. The variety of calls made to Tox Info Suisse as a consequence of instances of opioid poisoning elevated by 177 p.c throughout this era. The heart acquired 1.4 calls per 100,000 inhabitants in 2000, however 20 years later the variety of calls had risen by greater than two and a half as many.

Sales doubled

Sales figures additionally virtually doubled (+92%), from 14,300 models bought per 100,000 inhabitants to 27,400. Importantly, the enhance in robust opioids was larger than in weaker varieties, each in phrases of calls to Tox Info Suisse and gross sales figures.

In absolute phrases, the painkiller tramadol appeared most ceaselessly in 2019, each in Tox Info Suisse and in gross sales (40%). Tramadol is a weak opioid prescribed for average to extreme ache.

The second commonest is oxycodone, a powerful opioid that’s the topic of greater than a 3rd of all calls to Tox Info Suisse and accounts for nearly 1 / 4 of gross sales. The figures referring to instances of poisoning and gross sales figures for oxycodone elevated markedly between 2009 and 2016, with each greater than doubling.

“Our study clearly shows that opioid use is rising sharply in Switzerland,” Burden summarizes the state of affairs. “The increase in sales is similar to those seen in the Netherlands and Denmark, however, our per capita sales are substantially higher in recent years.” While, we’re nonetheless a great distance from the present state of affairs in the U.S. or Canada, now we have to maintain a watch on the state of affairs as the excessive gross sales of oxycodone in Switzerland is just like what we noticed in Canada in the early 2000’s” says Burden.

Averting a fentanyl disaster

The research says little or no about the use of illicit opioids, together with fentanyl, an opioid that’s administered for very extreme ache; it’s about ten occasions stronger than oxycodone and has a excessive potential for illicit use and deadly overdoses.

In the U.S., Canada, and Australia, illicit heroin and fentanyl use spiked following the elimination of OxyContin, and fentanyl is the main driver of the present opioid disaster in these nations.

As no figures can be found, Burden can not remark on the present variety of illicit fentanyl customers in Switzerland. Considered a narcotic, fentanyl is topic to stricter prescription necessities in Switzerland. However, Burden says that “if strong opioids like oxcycodone are suddenly restricted, patients who have a dependency to these medications may turn to the illicit market, and this is a danger we need to avoid moving forward.”

In the gross sales, fentanyl was the third most bought opioid, however this can be largely to care properties for end-stage most cancers administration. In the Tox Info Suisse information, only a few calls have been acquired for fentanyl. However, for opioids, and significantly, fentanyl, it’s potential that customers (or their caregivers) flip on to emergency providers in the occasion of poisoning in order to acquire an antidote shortly. Therefore, it’s possible that the Tox Info Suisse wouldn’t seize the majority of extreme opioid poisonings.

Tip of the iceberg

With information for the pandemic years 2020 and 2021 not but identified, it’s unclear whether or not the use of opioids has risen dramatically, as in the U.S. The image supplied by the figures from PharmaSuisse and Tox Info Suisse isn’t full both, and Burden is satisfied that “the figures presented in the study on the harms with opioids in Switzerland are just the tip of the iceberg. We need more data to understand harms associated with opioid use in Switzerland—this includes the number who have developed a dependency to prescription opioids and the number of opioid-related deaths” Burden continues. She is now embarking on a follow-up research to handle these questions.

Burden believes you will need to stay vigilant, no matter additional research: “We are not at the current scale of the opioid epidemic seen in North America or other countries such as U.K. or Australia. However, those countries are grappling with fentanyl use that developed following the restrictions on oxycodone. In Switzerland, we do not yet have the data to understand the full scale of opioid use and harms. Therefore, it is important that we collect this data so we can make informed policy decisions,” says the researcher. “We are in a lucky position in Switzerland, as we have the opportunity to learn from the situation in other countries, and hopefully avoid a fentanyl epidemic.”

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