Officials in several states are scrambling to deal with a series of heroin overdose outbreaks affecting dozens of people and involving at least six deaths. The spikes in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia over the past few days have seen rescue workers rushing from scene to scene to provide overdose antidote drugs. Last year, accidental drug overdoses killed 3,050 people in Ohio, an average of eight per day, state officials said. A record high 47,055 people died from drug overdoses in the United States in 2014, according to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Mount Sterling, Kentucky, one person died following a series of 12 heroin overdoses that occurred within hours of each other on Wednesday.

Source: ABC News August 26, 2016 17:27 UTC