Health district offering fentanyl test strips in bid to cut OD deaths

Local health officials hope a fast and simple test capable of detecting fentanyl in black market prescription pills and other drugs can reduce the wave of overdoses from the deadly drug.

Officials with the Southern Nevada Health District on Tuesday announced the new program to distribute fentanyl test strips, which are about as easy to use as a take-home pregnancy test.

The test strips, determined accurate by Johns Hopkins University and Brown University, are initially available at the health district’s pharmacy, 280 S. Decatur Blvd., the district said in a news release. They are free, no appointment is needed and officials say they do not log any personal information.

Entities interested in helping distribute the test strips can contact L2A@snhd.org.

It is hoped the tests will allow users to avoid the fentanyl-laced tablets, which often look like legitimate prescription pills they’re pressed to emulate: Percocet, Xanax, oxycodone. Fentanyl also is often cut into street drugs, such as methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine, officials said.

That has led to an increasing number of deaths of unsuspecting victims who do not know they are consuming the synthetic opioid, described as being up to 100 times stronger than morphine, officials say.

Fentanyl, which is killing an increasing number of Americans, claimed 219 lives in Clark County in 2020, about three times as many as the 74 killed in 2019, according to Metropolitan Police Department data.

At least 208 people have died from fentanyl-related overdoses in the county this year through October, the data shows.

Nevada last year reported a 55 percent increase in overdose deaths compared to 2019, according to the health district. People younger than 25 in the state experienced three times as many overdoses during the period.

The health district already freely distributes naloxone, an antidote that reverses the effects of an opioid overdose.

They recommend every opioid user and their families and friends carry the spray.

The fentanyl test strips, which come with “easy-to-follow instructions,” are funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which reported a record 88,000 overdose deaths across the U.S. in a one-year period ending in August 2020.

The test strips are capable of testing for different drugs, and uses different methods depending on how they are consumed, according to instructions published by public health officials in New York. Users typically get results in as little as two minutes as to whether the test was positive, negative or “invalid.”

“The availability of fentanyl test strips is another step in our comprehensive harm reduction strategy,” wrote Elizabeth Adelman, communicable disease supervisor for the health district, in the release. “This program can also serve as an opening to connect people to additional life-saving resources.”

Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @rickytwrites.