Opioid-Related Deaths Could Be Underestimated

That determination is based on findings by researchers lead by Dr. Victoria Hall, a field officer with the Centers for Disease Control in Minnesota.

Experts say drug users are more vulnerable to infectious diseases which can make it hard to determine a cause of death.

The report warned a spate of drug deaths in Minnesota flew under the radar, listed instead as being "unexplained" or caused by an infectious disease.

That means a number of drug-related deaths are not being counted, since surveillance systems mainly track overdose deaths. Eighteen have died in the span of j... It does seem like it is nearly an iceberg of an epidemic'.

"While my research can not speak to what percent we are underestimating, we know we are missing cases". But the death certificates didn't include coding that would be picked up by statewide opioid surveillance systems. The team looked for pneumonia and other infectious disease deaths among residents older than aged 12 years to see whether opioids could be involved and found in postmortem toxicology screenings.

Across the country, more than 90 people die every day of an opioid overdose, but the crisis might be even worse than we know. That's close to as many deaths caused by traffic crashes that same year, according to federal statistics. Thirty-two of the deaths involved pneumonia.

But pneumonia shouldn't kill an otherwise healthy middle-aged person, Hall said. Two days earlier, he'd seemed ill and was slurring his words, but refused his family's pleas to go to the hospital.

The man, she said, had been taking painkillers for back pain for years, to the extent that his family was concerned. Hall said the demographics of cases caught in the UNEX system were very similar to those captured in the state overdose system, with adults of all ages and ethnicities, both rural and urban. An autopsy revealed the presence of pneumonia and toxic levels of opioids, but the death certificate only listed pneumonia as the cause of death.

"Opioids at therapeutic or higher than therapeutic levels can impact our immune system", said Ms. Hall, during the conference, according to a CNN report.

"When you take an opioid and it makes you breathe more shallow and breathe slower and less likely to cough, it's a lot more likely things can settle in your lungs", Hall said. Of those, 22 cases had not been reported to statewide opioid surveillance because the involvement of drugs hadn't been listed on the death certificate.

Hall said the study can not indicate just how many deaths that involve opioid use are being missed.

After the autopsy, the medical examiner revealed that the man tested for a high level of opioids and was also diagnosed with pneumonia.