Areas in Delaware are seeing a spike in opioid overdoses just weeks after state officials expressed optimism that overdoses were trending down.
As of May 5, there have been 96 suspected overdoses in Sussex County and 55 in Kent County this year, according to Delaware State Police and health officials. There have been six fatalities presumed to be caused by opioid overdoses. The majority of overdoses in Sussex occurred in the area of Georgetown, Millsboro and Milford.
The Delaware National Guard, enlisted by the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services to test packages causing the suspected overdoses, found a mixture of drugs, including synthetic opioid fentanyl, animal tranquilizer xylazine and bromazolam, a benzodiazepine that acts like a sedative.
Tags: Fentanyl Naloxone Opioid Epidemic Overdose Safety Alert Xylazine