Photos credit Tportal (© Hrvatski Telekom 2024)
The Croatian Institute of Public Health (HZJZ) held a presentation and education about take home naloxone that will be available from the end of September as a preventive medicine in the event of a drug overdose.
Krunoslav Capak, the director of HZJZ, in his address to the health workers, civil servants and coordinators of that program, pointed out that ‘drug use is a major health problem’ and that ‘in recent years we have seen an increase in deaths’ due to opiate overdose. In five years, Croatia had 468 cases directly related to drug use.
The head of the Department for Quality and Standards in the field of drug addiction and behavioral addictions, Josipa Lovorka Andreić, said that, according to HZJZ research, more than half of addicts have overdosed at least once, which only increases the possibility that their next overdose will be their last.
As a solution to this problem, the take home naloxone (Nyxoid) was presented. It is intended for use as emergency therapy in case of opioid overdose or suspected overdose.
The program will take place in two phases – the first will start this year within the prison system and penitentiaries, and the second next year through associations for the protection of mental health and therapeutic communities, as well as addiction prevention of county public health institutes.
The procurement of the drug begins immediately after the education. It will hopefully be available in two to three weeks. It will be issued by a doctor, and the situation will be monitored on a monthly basis by project coordinators and representatives of HZJZ.
This makes Croatia the 17th European country where naloxone will be used.
Three activists of our member organisation HELP from Split have participated in the education of coordinators for implementation of the pilot project on naloxone home doses.