The NaloxBox, shown in a video explaining use of the box and medication in battling overdoses.
The opioid scourge has become so widespread that Camden County says it will install in every school in the county secure, wall-mounted boxes containing emergency medication to reverse overdoses.
Every public and parochial school will get the naloxone kits, called the NaloxBox, which holds four doses of the overdose drug, often known as the brand names of Narcan and Evzio. The drug typically is given as a nasal spray and, when successful, rapidly reverses an opioid overdose by blocking the effects of the opioids in the person's system, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
The county reported its goal is to install more than 250 boxes in more than 150 schools by the end of this month. The cost of the program is more than $30,000, the county reported.
The Board of Commissioners on Thursday debuted the program in response to the opioid public health crisis that took more than 100,000 lives nationally last year and more than 300 in Camden County, according to the county. In January, a 12-year-old died on a school bus in Gloucester Township from a fatal fentanyl overdose.
"We are distributing this necessary medication to ensure that every institution in the county can respond to an overdose on school property as well as to educate students and staff about opioids, especially in the age of fentanyl," Commissioner Director Louis Cappelli Jr. said in a statement.
Overdose-response training will be scheduled in November for faculty and staff of the schools. "This ensures that administration of the life-saving medication is not solely put on the school nurse," according to the county announcement.
"Having the tools to address these challenges is critical in potentially saving lives but will also help in destigmatizing the conversation centered around substance misuse," Jacqueline Keehn, school nurse at the Black Horse Pike Regional School District, said in the county's announcement.
Students "are impressionable and subject to peer pressure and these drugs present a great risk in every district in our county," she stated.
The NaloxBox program is administered by RIDMAT Inc., a nonprofit organization based in Providence, Rhode Island.
The pilot project for NaloxBoxes was supported in 2017 by grants from the Rhode Island Department of Health, according to a 2018 article in the American Journal of Public Health, which also cited one Massachusetts study that found a 98% success rate with a layperson administering the inhaled naloxone.
