Heroin overdoses spike in several states

CINCINNATI — Officials in several states are scrambling to deal with a series of heroin overdose outbreaks affecting dozens of people and involving at least six deaths.

The spikes in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia over the past few days have seen rescue workers rushing from scene to scene to provide overdose antidote drugs.

While it’s unclear if one dealer or batch is responsible for the multistate outbreak, the spikes reflect the potency of heroin flooding the Midwest.

In Cincinnati, police on Friday asked for the public’s help in identifying the source of the heroin behind an estimated 78 overdoses in two days.

Officials in surrounding Hamilton County are calling the latest onslaught of overdose cases a public health emergency. County Health Commissioner Tim Ingram said the number of emergency room incidents over the last six days was “unprecedented.”

Emergency rooms estimate they had 174 suspected opioid overdose cases this week, including three deaths. Last year, accidental drug overdoses killed 3,050 people in Ohio, an average of eight per day, state officials said.

A record high 47,055 people died from drug overdoses in the United States in 2014, according to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That was up 7 percent from the year before, spurred by large increases in heroin and opioid painkiller deaths.

The spikes in overdoses might be much worse without naloxone, a now widely available overdose antidote that many first responders such as firefighters carry.