(The Center Square) — Preparing Pennsylvania localities to deal with xylazine, a horse tranquilizer that’s mixed in with fentanyl, has cost the state almost $500,000 thus far.
The money, spent in an effort to send out 50,000 xylazine wound care kits, is part of a harm-reduction effort to get help to Pennsylvanians with addictions. More than 5,000 people have died annually due to overdoses in recent years, though deaths have started to fall recently.
Much of the problem with xylazine, also called tranq, has been focused on Philadelphia — but its reach has expanded westward in the state.
To lessen the health and social problems created by xylazine use, the Department of Health announced in August that it would disperse 50,000 wound care kits across the commonwealth.
“Based on data collected by the Department of Health, Pennsylvania has seen a 50% increase in the number of xylazine-related overdose deaths between 2022 and 2023,” DOH noted in a press release. “Xylazine contributed to drug overdose deaths in at least 51 counties across the Commonwealth in 2023, based on preliminary data. This is a stark contrast to 2017, when xylazine was not noted as contributing to any overdose death in Pennsylvania.”
In 2018, xylazine contributed to 51 fatal overdoses. By 2021, that number skyrocketed to 1,156, according to preliminary data from the Department of Health.
The kits, which contain sanitizing wipes, gloves, under pads, sterile water and gauze sponges, ointments, and medical tape, cost approximately $9.13, according to DOH records, including supplies, warehousing services, and shipping costs. About 240 groups across Pennsylvania received them, ranging from hospitals and rehab clinics to AIDS-focused groups, recovery organizations, libraries, and police departments.
Each organization received at least 50 wound care kits, with Prevention Point Philadelphia getting 1,050 kits, followed by almost two dozen places getting 700 kits, like the Allegheny County Health Department and Angels Protection Inc., a nonprofit in Chester County focused on mothers and their children.
Demand, however, exceeded supply — most organizations requested twice as many kits as they received. Plans aren’t in place to repeat the 50,000-kit distribution effort, though it has inspired other efforts.
“The Department’s xylazine wound care kits were the first of their kind in Pennsylvania and have inspired others to make their own,” DOH Press Secretary Mark O’Neill said. “The Department will continue to assess needs across the state and provide additional kits as its resources allow.”
Xylazine didn’t get criminalized until May; before then, suburban police warned that xylazine complicated their job and made it harder to get users into jail or recovery services. Legislators have proposed bills to create an involuntary treatment process in Pennsylvania after a number of overdoses, but the bill stalled in the Senate.
“Xylazine’s emergence in Pennsylvania’s illicit drug supply is a major public health concern,” Department of Health Secretary Debra Bogen said in August. “Because the wounds caused by xylazine are more complicated and severe than those traditionally seen in people who use other drugs, there is a need for quick action, new medical protocols, and access to appropriate self-care wound supplies.”
To better prepare the public, the Department has started to offer xylazine wound-care trainings; the first will be October 23 for non-clinical training and the clinical training will be November 6.
