Hand-Held Treatment for Overdoses is Approved

The FDA has approved a hand-held device called Evzio that can deliver a single dose of naloxone. Naloxone is a medication that reverses the effects of an overdose, commonly used on people who have stopped breathing or lost consciousness from an opioid drug overdose. Until now, naloxone has available only in medical settings, often too late for the drug to be effective.

Evzio is similar in size and application to that of an EpiPen. The easy-to-use injector is small enough to fit into a pocket or medicine cabinet, allowing family and friends to easily administer the drug to people who have overdosed. The FDA has been applauded for making this available to friends and family of people who have overdosed, as these are the people who usually the first to respond to overdose victims.

Evzio will be available this summer and was quickly approved due to the rise in opioid deaths within the past year. Deaths from opiods have quadrupled in 10 years to more than 16,500 in 2010, according to federal data. It is hoped that this drug will help to prevent unnecessary mortality. 

Source