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SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Naloxone and Overdose Awareness Utah are offering a joint basic Naloxone training in honor of International Overdose Awareness Day today at noon.
Anyone who preregisters and attends the 12 p.m. training on Tuesday will receive a free injectable Naloxone kit and a 2021 International Overdose Awareness Day T-shirt mailed directly to them. You can sign up here.
The online event is free to anyone, and will include instructions to safely use a naloxone kit in order to prevent overdose. Naloxone is a U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved medication that can prevent opioid overdose death by binding to opioid receptors in the brain and reversing or blocking the effects of opioids. It is temporary and has to be administered quickly, so training is crucial, as is medical intervention following use. Naloxone is completely legal to carry and can potentially help save lives.
Utah Naloxone is a nonprofit group of local prescribers, pharmacists, public health workers, recovery advocates and people who have lost loved ones to the opioid epidemic. They regularly offer in-person trainings and some virtual trainings on naloxone administration.
According to data from Utah Sen. Mike Lee's Social Capital Project, Utah's number of fatal overdoses has rapidly fallen from its high in 2015, but that decline has stalled during the pandemic. Overdose is still the leading cause of injury death in Utah and more than 10 Utahns die every day from overdose. The rate of overdose deaths in Utah is greater than car accident and firearms fatalities combined.
"Please join us and our partners at Overdose Awareness Utah to learn how you can save a life with naloxone," Dr. Jennifer Plumb, co-founder of Utah Naloxone, wrote on the event invitation. "You can be the one to keep someone alive."
Community members can participate in the noon training, via Zoom, here: https://tinyurl.com/58bfs8yu.
There will also be an event Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at the state Capitol to shine purple lights on the building in honor of Utah lives lost to opioid overdose. Naloxone/Narcan and fentanyl test strips will be available one hour prior to the event.
