NEW CUMBERLAND, W.Va. — Less than a month after West Virginia’s first statewide naloxone distribution project launched to increase access to the medication, the deliveries are well underway across the Mountain State.
The Hancock County Health Department is scheduled to receive 300 boxes, or 600 doses of the the opioid overdose reversal drug which comes in packages of two, as early as this week.
That naloxone will largely be distributed at no cost to community members through the health department’s naloxone training classes in Chester, New Cumberland and Weirton, according to Donna Gialluco, HCHD administrative services assistant.
“Administration of this Narcan (the brand name for naloxone) works on the young and the old as well as the people who are struggling with drug addiction,” she told MetroNews.
West Virginia University’s Injury Control Research Center has partnered with the state Department of Health and Human Resources’ Bureau for Behavioral Health and Health Facilities and Bureau for Public Health for the distributions.
“Our ultimate goal would to be to get as much naloxone (as possible) out on the streets to help decrease opioid overdoses,” said Sheena Sayres, public health outreach specialist for WVU’s Injury Control Research Center.
She is overseeing the ongoing program allocations.
In all, there are 8,000 kits containing two doses each for 16,000 total naloxone doses that will be rolled out in two separate phases over the next couple of months.
The organizations already receiving naloxone include the following: the Cabell-Huntington, Kanawha-Charleston and Wheeling-Ohio County health departments along with officials in Brooke County and non-EMS first responders like the Huntington Fire Department, Huntington Police Department and Charleston Police Department.
Last week, kits were distributed to non-EMS first responders in Monongalia, Marion and Harrison counties.
Up next on the distribution list are organizations in counties that include Berkeley, Mercer, McDowell and Raleigh.
A priority list for the naloxone was created using risk scores, according to Sayres.
“Their scores are based on the type of program they have,” explained Sayres. “Also, where they’re located in the state which is based on the opioid overdose risk and then on their need for actual naloxone.”
She continued, “Some of the organizations already had a bunch of naloxone, so they only needed a few doses. Some of them don’t have any, so they needed a lot,” Sayres said.
For Gialluco, the distributions are about saving lives.
“You’d be surprised, in the past trainings that we’ve done, we’ve had parents come in and say they’re embarrassed to tell their doctor, but they’re pretty sure their kids are on something and (ask) can they have it,” she said.
Accidental overdoses for the elderly who may be confused about medication timings or young children who get into something mistakenly, Gialluco said, are also a real concern in Hancock County.
“That relief that comes over their face knowing that they pray to God they never have to use this, but if there is that incident that they need to do that with their child or their sister or an adult — anybody, that they have that backup.”
Naloxone typically costs $75 per box and may or may not be covered by insurance.
The statewide free naloxone distribution project is being largely funded through a federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment block grant.