News File Photo A naloxone kit is seen in Alpena in July.

ALPENA — Drug overdoses killed more than 93,000 Americans in 2020, the highest number of overdose deaths ever recorded in one year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced on Wednesday.

While the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services reports no deaths by overdose in Alpena County in the past 12 months, drug overdose led to 73 Alpena County emergency room visits since July 2020.

Overdose emergencies spiked in the county in October, when that month’s 12 overdoses doubled the previous month’s total.

The county reported no overdoses in December, February, or March but recorded another 26 overdoses in spring and early summer of this year.

The state’s website only provides emergency room visit information since July 2020.

Three in five of the country’s 93,000 deaths last year involved fentanyl — a drug often added to methamphetamine and other illegal substances distributed in Alpena and deadly in miniscule amounts, according to police.

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The ready availability of naloxone — a medication that can temporarily reverse the effects of an opioid overdose — reduces overdose deaths, according to Larry LaCross, clinical supervisor for Catholic Human Services’ eastern region.

The drug equips anyone in the community to provide immediate, life-saving assistance in the event of an opioid overdose, LaCross said, equating the drug with automated external defibrillators in public spaces where people might have heart attacks.

Nine Alpena County pharmacies, or 78% of licensed pharmacies in the county, have a standing order for naloxone, according to the state. In the past 12 months, community organizations, behavioral health services, local health departments, and first responders in Alpena County ordered 816 naloxone kits from the state.

“We have more flexible and available clinical and community-based recovery and treatment supports than we had before,” LaCross said. “It is critical that we focus on connecting these resources to the people who need them more than ever.”

Alpena County last reported an overdose death to the state in 2019, when four people died by overdose. Thirty-six Northeast Michiganders died by overdose between 2015 and 2019, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.