Opioid abuse on the rise in Switzerland

Sales of Oxycodone have risen noticeably in the past decade, the researchers say. Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

Cases of opioid poisoning have almost tripled in Switzerland over the past 20 years, although the full extent of the situation is unclear.

The number of opioid-related calls made to Tox Info Suisse, the national poisoning hotline, increased by 177% between 2000 and 2019, wroteExternal link the federal technology institute ETH Zurich on Monday. However, at 3.9 calls registered per 100,000 inhabitants, this number remains limited.

During the same period, sales of opioids almost doubled, from 14,300 units sold per 100,000 inhabitants to 27,400. The study warned that the increase was bigger for stronger products – for example, oxycodone, which now accounts for over a third of emergency calls to Tox Info and almost a quarter of all sales.

Illicit usage of the highly potent fentanyl – the major driver of the opioid crisis in the US, Canada and Australia – is less clear. While it is the third most sold opioid in Switzerland, demand may be largely driven by care homes, which use it as part of end-stage cancer management treatments, researchers said.

Tip of the iceberg

Andrea Burden, professor of pharmacoepidemiology at ETH Zurich, said Switzerland was “still a long way from the current situation in the US or Canada” but warned it should be wary, especially since current sales are similar to those recorded in Canada in the early 2000s.

Burden added that the numbers found might just be the tip of the iceberg and that more data and research was needed to understand the Swiss situation – including addiction levels and the number of opioid-related deaths.

In the US the opioid crisis is estimated to have led to the deaths of around 180,000 people in 2021, an increase of 17% on the previous year.

The ETH Zurich research was also publishedExternal link in the Lancet Regional Health Europe medical journal on Monday.