Last week Governor Doug Ducey extended the executive order for increased reporting of opioid-related data by renewing his recent. The order, originally issued on June 13, allows state health officials to obtain critical information within 24-hours of an opioid-related overdose or the identification of a baby with drug withdrawal symptoms.
This data is a vital resource to ADHS and other partners working to save lives and reduce the number of people in our state affected by this crisis. Prior to the executive order, the records we had on opioid overdoses could be more than a year old. That data helped us to identify the crisis in Arizona, and now with the enhanced surveillance data we are able to make recommendations that can prevent opioid overdoses and deaths.
The real time data reported that between June 15 and August 10 there were 1,557 suspected opioid overdoses, 202 of them fatal. There were 117 babies were born with possible drug-related withdrawal symptoms. Real-time data is helping ADHS work with partners to track opioid related events and develop life-saving interventions, such as making the overdose-reversal medication naloxone readily available in our communities. There 1,199 doses of naloxone administered and 1,361 naloxone kits dispensed by pharmacists.
The original executive order was set to expire 60 days after issuance, as required by statute. This extension enables the enhanced reporting to continue for an additional 60 days, or until the public health emergency ends. A copy of the executive order and the opioid data is available on the ADHS opioid website azhealth.gov/opioid.
