Most of these deaths (78.2 percent) were drug overdoses with known drug classification. A further investigation revealed that for unclassified drug overdoses, 71.8 percent involved opioids, translating to 99,160 additional opioid-related deaths. There were over 70,000 drug overdose deaths in 2017, according to an estimate from the CDC. Another study on opioid overdoses found that the number of drug overdose deaths decreased by 4 percent from 2017 to 2018. In 2018, more than 67,000 people died from drug overdoses, making it a leading cause of injury-related death in the United States.

Source: Front Page Africa September 28, 2020 07:18 UTC