$6M For UMSL Addiction Science Team To Fight Mo. Opioid Crisis

$6M For UMSL Addiction Science Team To Fight Mo. Opioid Crisis

Introduction

The Addiction Science Team at the University of Missouri-St. Louis will receive around $6 million to enhance its statewide training and delivery of opioid overdose reversal medicine.

Naloxone, sometimes known as Narcan, is a reversal drug. This funding was provided by the state when it acquired funds from opioid pharmaceutical settlements.

One of the program's directors, a UMSL Associate Professor, stated that it will at least quadruple the number of naloxone doses available and, ideally, the number of lives saved. According to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, 2,163 persons died from drug overdoses in Missouri in 2021.

According to the professor, the state needs to enhance harm reduction training and distribution initiatives.

Naloxone is crucial in the procedure. He stated that in addition to obtaining naloxone, they spend time and money distributing it to groups around the state and educating them to utilise it.

He went on to say that they buy both the brand name Narcan, which is a nasal spray that, like Flonase, you just spray up your nose or the nose of someone else. The institution also buys the intramuscular variety, which includes a vial and syringe that may be inserted into anyone's large muscle. Faith, Hope, and Love Worship Center in St. Louis is one of the groups that provide naloxone on a regular basis.

Pastor of Faith, Hope and Love Worship Center said that the volunteers of the center sometimes walk the street and go to places to distribute the spray. She even added that even she has lost her family members to the crisis and the epidemic is still active in the city.