State health officials will hand out free Narcan at this year’s atTAcK Addiction 5k.
800 doses of the opioid overdose antidote will be offered to the public at atTAcK Addiction’s 6th annual 5k on March 2nd at St. Peter’s Church in New Castle. One-on-one Narcan training will also be available.
atTAcK Addiction’s Dave Humes says he expects about 3,000 people at the event.
“It’s more of a day of uplift to remember the people we’ve lost and to support those people in recovery,” said Humes.
This is the first of four state-sponsored Narcan events scheduled in March. The other dates and times are yet to be determined.
“There will be ones in each county,” said Director of Public Health Dr. Karyl Rattay. “So expect another one in New Castle County as well as one in Kent and one in Sussex County all in the month of March. We’ll be releasing that information soon.”
$200,000 was set aside in this year’s DPH budget for Narcan.
Rattay cites a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistic showing 80% of overdoses occur at home but very few homes have Narcan, also known as naloxone, to reverse an overdose.
“So it’s really critical to us that we get this life-saving overdose-reversing medication naloxone in the hands of friends and family members and anyone else there in the community,” she said.
Delaware was tied for the 5th highest overdose rate in the nation in 2017, and state officials say the rate likely rose for the 6th straight year in 2018 with 419 suspected overdose deaths.
Delaware first responders administered Narcan about 30% more times last year than in 2017.
