It’s 1980s all over again for heroin crisis
Officials: New epidemic mirrors AIDS outbreak
The opioid epidemic has become this generation’s pressing public health crisis with the same devastating effect as the AIDS outbreak in the 1980s, a top health expert said.
The warning comes as a cluster of HIV cases linked to dirty needles used to shoot up heroin and fentanyl was discovered in the Lowell-Lawrence region, as the Herald reported earlier this week.
That coupled with more than 2,000 people dying from opiate overdoses last year is an epidemic “heading in the wrong direction,” said Carl Sciortino, executive director of the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts, which has merged with Fenway Health.
“We’re not reaching everyone in the streets ... and we’re not doing enough to keep them alive,” Sciortino said yesterday. “We’re already losing a generation.”
He likened the drug scourge to the AIDS epidemic of the early ’80s, which was also stymied by a “stigma” — the same negativity plaguing the opioid crisis. But just like AIDS, drug addiction hits in the suburbs and the city.
“Our best prevention efforts are not adequate for the volume of scale of the crisis we’re seeing right now,” said Sciortino, a former state representative for Somerville and Medford. “We’re making good strides around the edges ... but we’re not reaching everyone.”
He also pointed to the news this week that an alarming spike in HIV cases among addicts clustered in Lowell and Lawrence has health experts warning Boston could be next.
The state Department of Public Health report shows an outbreak of HIV cases in the Merrimack Valley cities and surrounding communities. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention assisted in the study, which uncovered 129 intravenous drug users with HIV in the Lowell-Lawrence area since 2015. That’s up from 11 cases in the same area in 2014.
While overdoses remain a major concern of the opioid crisis, the HIV outbreak is seen as an urgent threat among public health providers.
Sciortino said an average of six people die each day in the Bay State due to ODs on opiates.
Dr. Matthew Mostofi, associate chief of Tufts Medical Center’s emergency department, said the message still needs to get out on the dangers of sharing needles and all that goes with shooting up drugs.
“The outreach to the intravenous drug community needs to happen,” he said. “It’s a disenfranchised community.
“But we’re being proactive in trying to identify these people,” he added.
He also drew a parallel to the AIDS outbreak of the ’80s, but stressed the homosexual community was “very educated and embraced HIV prevention.”
That’s not the case with the opiate epidemic.
There’s no quick cure, health experts say. An addiction just doesn’t go away easily.
This week the state opiate cluster report called for needle exchanges — which have been started in Lowell and Lawrence — along with more HIV testing, treatment and education, in addition to naloxone to reverse overdoses.
As for Boston, the number of drug overdoses is up dramatically, but officials say they have not yet detected a significant increase of HIV cases caused by intravenous drug use.
In Boston and the state, HIV/ AIDS cases had been on the decrease, making the spike in Lowell and Lawrence a red flag for disease trackers.
“The Lowell and Lawrence situation should be raising more alarm bells than it is,” Sciortino said. “This addiction is not a simple path. It’s a lifetime commitment of treatment.”