SYDNEY, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- The rate of opioid drug overdoses continues to shoot up in Australia, with many of the country's leading health professionals growing concerned about the alarming trend.
Official figures from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) on Monday showed that pharmaceutical opioids, not street drugs like heroin, now account for the vast majority of deaths.
In total, 76 percent of all the 1,045 fatal opioid overdoses in 2016 were a result of prescription drugs such as morphine, oxycodone and codeine.
"When we look at data on dispensing, Australia is ranked 8th globally in terms of national opioid utilization," Dr Amy Peacock, program lead for Drug Trends at UNSW, told Xinhua.
"So we are seeing greater levels of opioid dispensing and the increasing use of stronger opioids."
But while the data appears to suggest that "over-prescribing" of opioid drugs may be contributing to the problem, Peacock explained that a large portion of the deaths may be from users taking pharmaceutical drugs that were not directly prescribed to them.
"To see these deaths increasing, it is very concerning but we do have a number of strategies that we can deploy to reduce the risk of opioid overdose," she explained.
"One of the key strategies is increasing access to treatment and making sure that people have access to opioid substitutions like methadone."
"But we also need to look at other options when it comes to addressing this current trend."
With state and federal governments now considering a range of new strategies, including the roll out of prescription monitoring programmes and other interventions, medical authorities are also keeping a close eye on a devastating synthetic opioid which has caused a spate of tragedies across Europe and North America in recent years.
"While we are monitoring the situation in Australia quite closely, there is little evidence to suggest the widespread use of illicit fentanyl," Peacock said.
"But we need to make sure that we are proactive so that we can identify if there is a growing issue and respond accordingly."
