{"id":209432,"date":"2019-04-11T03:36:08","date_gmt":"2019-04-11T07:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=209432"},"modified":"2019-04-11T03:36:08","modified_gmt":"2019-04-11T07:36:08","slug":"opioid-overdoses-claimed-more-than-3200-lives-in-first-nine-months-of-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/04\/11\/opioid-overdoses-claimed-more-than-3200-lives-in-first-nine-months-of-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Opioid overdoses claimed more than 3,200 lives in first nine months of 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_209433\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-209433\" style=\"width: 4288px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/shutterstock_1023769228.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-209433\" src=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/shutterstock_1023769228.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"4288\" height=\"2848\" srcset=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/shutterstock_1023769228.jpg 4288w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/shutterstock_1023769228-768x510.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 4288px) 100vw, 4288px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-209433\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The data also indicates that fentanyl and other fentanyl-related substances continue to be a \u201cmajor driver\u201d of Canada&#8217;s opioid crisis, with 73 per cent of accidental apparent opioid-related deaths in the nine-month span involving the potent painkilling drugs. (Shutterstock photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>OTTAWA &#8212; The Public Health Agency of Canada has released new data showing that 3,286 Canadians died after apparent opioid-related overdoses between January and September last year.<\/p>\n<p>The data also indicates that fentanyl and other fentanyl-related substances continue to be a \u201cmajor driver\u201d of Canada&#8217;s opioid crisis, with 73 per cent of accidental apparent opioid-related deaths in the nine-month span involving the potent painkilling drugs.<\/p>\n<p>In comparison, the agency says there were 3,017 apparent opioid-related deaths in 2016 and 4,034 in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>If the rate of deaths in first nine months of 2018 continued for the full year, the total would have been nearly 4,400.<\/p>\n<p>The health agency said Wednesday the opioid crisis continues to affect the entire country but certain regions, including B.C., Alberta and Ontario, have been hit harder than others.<\/p>\n<p>Apparent opioid-related deaths are counted through data provided by the provinces and territories from offices of chief coroners or medical examiners. Opioids can be hard to disentangle from other factors in a death, including different drugs and underlying illnesses, so the numbers take a long time to crunch and come with qualifiers.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada&#8217;s chief public-health officer, said Wednesday that the newly released figures serve as a \u201cstark reminder\u201d of the importance of maintaining and ramping up efforts to stop the epidemic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs we take the pain of these losses and the deeply concerning data to heart we must continue to strengthen our collaborative public-health response,\u201d she said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>The federal government recognizes there is no simple solution, said Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI&#8217;m extremely concerned with the amount of deaths,\u201d she said. \u201cTo me, these aren&#8217;t just simple numbers. These are mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters and as a government we have to work collectively with our partners on the ground to make sure that we do all that we can to reverse the tide here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OTTAWA &#8212; The Public Health Agency of Canada has released new data showing that 3,286 Canadians died after apparent opioid-related &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":209433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209432"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":209434,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209432\/revisions\/209434"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}