In the first six months of 2024, authorities recorded an average of 21 deaths per day in the country of 40 million people, a decline «encouraging» 11% compared to the same period the previous year.
Nearly 50,000 people died of opioid overdoses in Canada between the outbreak of the crisis in early 2016 and June 2024, with fentanyl playing an increasingly important role in the deaths, health authorities said Monday.
The new data comes as US President-elect Donald Trump accused his neighbor of not doing enough to stem the flow of fentanyl to the United States, threatening to impose 25% tariffs on Canadian products. .
This opiate, 50 times more powerful than heroin and 100 times more powerful than morphine, is responsible for an immense health crisis in the United States and, for five years, Canada has been an increasingly fertile ground for production and export of fentanyl, without however being a dominant player according to experts.
21 deaths per day
Of the total number of overdoses in Canada between January and June this year, 79% involved fentanyl, a percentage which has increased by 39% since 2016, said the Public Health Agency of Canada.
In the first six months of the year, authorities recorded an average of 21 deaths per day in the country of 40 million inhabitants, a drop “encouraging” 11% compared to the same period the previous year. But the “rates remain at extremely high levels”expressed concern in a press release Ya'ara Saks, Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, deploring “a tragic public health crisis”. “There is no universal solution to this problem”she added.
