In recent years, the addictive consumption of opioids has exploded in France and the United States, where fatal overdoses are on the rise. The new application “UnityPhilly” helps to rescue victims.
- In France, the number of deaths linked to the consumption of opioids increased by 146% between 2000 and 2015.
- The UnityPhilly application allows you to launch an alert if you are a witness or victim of an overdose.
A new app called UnityPhilly has proven effective in saving victims of an opioid overdose, according to an experiment published in the journal EClinicalMedicine (The Lancet).
An overdose of opioids (oxycodone, fentanyl, etc.) can cause breathing to slow down or stop. Naloxone is an inexpensive drug that can completely reverse the effects of opioid overdose if given early enough. To save someone from their opioid overdose, every second counts.
More than five minutes before the emergency workers
The application makes it possible to launch an alert if one is a witness or victim of an overdose, following which the notification reaches the telephones of the people closest to the incident. Whoever receives the alert can then go to the site and administer naloxone, which the participants in the experiment had previously been provided with.
The observations lasted a year. In more than half of the scenarios, study participants administered naloxone to the overdosed person more than five minutes before emergency responders arrived on the scene.
Before the start of the experiment, all participants were first trained in the administration of naloxone, mouth-to-mouth and provided with two doses of naloxone. Each time an alert was reported via the “SOS” button of the application, 911 was also contacted.
Our “app can help deliver naloxone faster when every second counts, welcomes research director Stephen Lankenau. It strengthens the chain of survival and keeps people alive until emergency responders arrive.”
The Opioid Crisis
More than 70,000 Americans died in 2017 from opioid overdoses, making it one of the main causes of the decrease in life expectancy in the United States in recent years.
The most consumed opioid analgesic in France is tramadol, followed by codeine. Next come morphine, oxycodone and fentanyl. Since 2006, the prescription of strong opioids has increased by approximately 150% (oxycodone marks the largest increase). Result: the number of hospitalizations linked to the consumption of opioid analgesics obtained on medical prescription increased by 167% between 2000 and 2017, from 15 to 40 hospitalizations per million inhabitants. The number of deaths related to opioid use increased by 146% between 2000 and 2015, with at least 4 deaths per week.
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