The Coconino County Health Department will receive 2,500 doses of naloxone, a medicine that reverses opioid overdoses. It's part of 7,000 units dispersed to organizations across the state.
This will be Arizona’s third purchase order of the medication this year from Teva Pharmaceuticals. They’re one of the companies that settled last year with Arizona and agreed to supply up to 27,500 units to the state per year over the next decade.
In Coconino County, those units are meant to get into the hands of community members, but Candice Koenker with the county’s health department says others are also being targeted.
“Our goal is to get it into the hands of people who use drugs, because we know that most of the reversals that happen as a result of administering Narcan are administered by other people who use drugs," Koenker said.
In 2022, Koenker said that Coconino County had 39 drug overdose deaths, 26 of which were due to opioids.
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