DDN_March26 March 2026 | Seite 4

NEWS ROUND-UP

Northern Ireland alcohol deaths up 80 % in a decade

There were 397 alcohol-specific deaths registered in Northern Ireland in 2024, according to the latest figures from the Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency( NISRA) – an 81 per cent increase since 2014. The country’ s alcohol-specific mortality rate per 100,000 people now stands at 21.4, the highest on record, with nearly two thirds of 2024’ s deaths registered among men.

Nearly 60 per cent of deaths were in the 45-54 and 54-64 age groups, with Belfast having the highest death rate of any local government area. Almost 40 per cent of alcohol-specific deaths occurred in the country’ s most deprived areas, with less than 10 per cent registered in
the least deprived. The Alcohol Health Alliance( AHA), which includes more than 60 charities, medical royal colleges and treatment providers, has sent an open letter to Northern Ireland’ s first and deputy ministers expressing‘ deep concern’ at the figures and calling for‘ decisive, evidence-based action’.
Deputy chair of BMA’ s Northern Ireland Council, Dr Clodagh Corrigan, said the figures were‘ alarming’ and called for the introduction of minimum unit pricing( MUP).‘ Doctors see first-hand the devastating effects of prolonged alcohol abuse on the health of their patients as it is one of the most significant risk factors for cardiovascular health, cancer and mental health,’ she said.‘ Alongside MUP legislation, it
is essential that there is help available for those who want to address their drinking. That includes ensuring all healthcare professionals receive adequate training in identifying and delivering interventions into alcohol misuse and are supported to be able to deliver this in their roles.’
Scotland saw a 7 per cent
' Prolonged alcohol abuse is one of the most significant risk factors for cardiovascular health, cancer and mental health.'
DR CLODAGH CORRIGAN
fall in alcohol-specific deaths in 2024, down from 2023’ s record high of 1,277. Alcohol-specific deaths in the UK as a whole hit their highest ever level in 2023, at almost 10,500.
Alcohol-specific deaths in Northern Ireland, 2014 to 2024 at www. nisra. gov. uk
thedoctor. bma. org. uk

Nitazene deaths are‘ likely underestimated’

THE NUMBER OF DEATHS RELATED TO NITAZENES have‘ likely been underestimated by up to a third’, according to researchers at King’ s College London. The NCA reported just over 330 deaths linked to nitazenes in 2024 – however the researchers believe that the substances’ stability in postmortem blood samples mean they are likely being missed in toxicology tests. After concerns were raised by toxicologists, the research team used anaesthetised rats to find that, on average, just 14 per cent of nitazene present at the time of overdose was still present when tested under‘ real world’ pathology and toxicology sample handling conditions. The team then used modelling to show a 33 per cent excess in drug-related deaths in Birmingham in 2023, based on data from King’ s College’ s National Programme on Substance Use Mortality.‘ A credible explanation for at least some of these excess deaths may be due to the non-detection of nitazene that degraded prior to toxicology testing being performed’, the researchers state, as it typically takes around a month for blood samples to be analysed by toxicologists.
Last year King’ s College concluded that opioid-related deaths in England and Wales between 2011 and 2022 were more than 50 per cent higher than those recorded in official ONS statistics, as while ONS based its figures on the information provided by coroners on death certificates it did not have access to post-mortem reports or toxicology results. This meant that if death certificates were missing information – such as when deaths are recorded with‘ ambiguous terms such as“ multidrug overdose”’ – ONS is unable to determine the individual substances involved. Is nitazene-related mortality underestimated? is published in the journal Clinical Toxicology at www. tandfonline. com /

£ 20m in tech grants announced

THE GOVERNMENT IS MAKING £ 20M OF GRANT FUNDING AVAILABLE for new tech projects to reduce harm from drugs and alcohol, DHSC has announced. The grants will support the development of projects like wearable tech, virtual reality and apps designed to‘ improve treatment, strengthen recovery, and reduce harm’, the department states.
The funding is being delivered by Innovate UK as part of the Office for Life Sciences’ Addiction Healthcare Goals programme. Grants of up to £ 1.5m will be available for early-stage innovations to help‘ promising technologies’ demonstrate effectiveness and strengthen their business planning, while awards of up to £ 10m will support later-stage‘ high impact’ projects that are already close to deployment and can demonstrate‘ real-world effectiveness, UK market readiness and progress towards regulatory approval’.
Previous projects to receive funding include a chestworn biosensor to detect the onset of life-threatening respiratory depression, a controlled-release patch for naloxone delivery and a handheld device for selfmonitoring benzodiazepine use. Applications open at Innovate UK until 6 May.
4 • DRINK AND DRUGS NEWS • MARCH 2026 WWW. DRINKANDDRUGSNEWS. COM