Are European countries well-prepared and equipped for a possible continued rise in Synthetic Opioid (SO) prevalence, use and incidents? 

COVID-19 pandemic has shown us that most of them were not prepared for a national health emergency. Would it be any different for a potential synthetic opioids epidemic? Would they have the necessary strategic planning and resources to tackle it down? 

SO-PREP is a two-year project which studies that to develop an evidence-based toolkit describing and recommending good practice monitoring and responses to SO in Europe.

The United States and Canada have both experienced an opioid crisis over the past decade, whilst Estonia is the only European country in which potent synthetic opioids and related problems have already been highly prevalent for the past 15 years. Could SO-PREP project partners classify the key factors that contributed to this, so that Europe possibly be more in control when it is its turn?

The partners are already busy with identifying experts from North America and Estonia and planning interviews with several vital stakeholders to map the SO health system response in Europe. 

They are also finding out about the current nature and extent of Synthetic Opioid use and related harms in different European countries while analysing data around its scope and nature in Europe. To discover that, they are counting with the expertise of EMCDDA Reitox Focal Points, the latest EMCDDA workbooks 2017 and 2018, as well as our Focal Points. 

So far, they have collected valuable data from 50 focal points in 37 European countries.
The first results of this in-depth research will be available by the end of the year. And the most useful, tailor-made toolkit they plan to develop, will accordingly convey all this identified and classified learning and information.

Check out the project website for timely updates and publications: www.so-prep-project.eu
and contact the project partners for your question and contributions.