At least nine people died from suspected opioid overdoses in the city in May, the lowest monthly tally in 12 months, according to preliminary data published by Toronto Public Health.

Despite relatively fewer deaths than in recent months, the Toronto Overdose Information System reported May was the city’s second-worst month for non-fatal opioid overdoses on record, at 420, behind only March, at 451.

That month saw 22 people die in the worst month since late-summer 2017, soon after the city first began counting paramedic reports of opioid-related deaths.

The city has seen a spike in opioid deaths in the first months of 2019. In total, Toronto paramedics have reported 77 deaths from suspected opioid overdoses so far this year, up from 42 over the same period in 2018.

The rise in overdoses comes as activists and city officials are warning of a worsening trend.

“It’s been a challenging first few months,” Dr. Eileen de Villa, the city’s medical officer of health, said in May.

Sarah Ovens, a co-ordinator with the Toronto Overdose Prevention Society, told the Star the rise in overdoses can be linked to a shift away from more predictable sources of drugs, like heroin, toward an ever-widening range and strengths of synthetic opioids, like fentanyl.

“There is no reason to think that trend is going to stop unless we do something drastic,” she said last month.

A key risk to users, front-line workers say, is that the potency of illicit fentanyl and its analogues is almost impossible to gauge prior to taking it.

Read more:

Suspected opioid deaths nearly double in Toronto for first four months of 2019, report shows

Days after Ford’s surprise cut, staff at this downtown safe-consumption site are scrambling to find the money to keep saving lives

Ottawa gives temporary reprieve to Toronto drug consumption sites that the province planned to close

The paramedic count of suspected opioid overdoses is preliminary and subject to change, and therefore may underestimate the true number of fatal overdoses in the city, according to Toronto Public Health’s Overdose Information System.

That’s in part because not all opioid overdoses in the city result in a 911 call involving paramedics. Any patient who dies in hospital after first being transported alive by paramedics might also be recorded as a “non-fatal” overdose in the data.

A paramedic’s assessment of an opioid overdose may also differ from a hospital’s ultimate diagnosis, or the coroner’s call on cause of death.

Toronto Public Health launched the Overdose Information System in August 2017 at a time when opioid-related deaths in the city were spiking to the highest levels the city has seen. Paramedics reported 24 deaths due to suspected opioid overdoses and 396 non-fatal calls that month.

Earlier this year, the province pulled funding from two supervised drug-consumption sites in the city and to Toronto Public Health itself.

Overdose prevention sites, like the two facilities threatened with closure in Toronto, are meant as an emergency solution to a mounting crisis. Workers at the sites monitor for signs of infection or overdose and are trained to reverse an overdose in progress and also strive to provide a sense of community and support.

Both threatened sites — St. Stephen’s Community House in Kensington Market and a site run by Street Health near Dundas and Sherbourne Sts. — have managed to stay open despite the province’s instructions that they should close their doors and direct clients elsewhere.

A third Toronto facility, the city-run safe-injection site called the Works, is also in limbo but still open after the province announced it is reviewing its legal status.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Safe injection sites offer similar services as overdose prevention sites but are meant to be permanent. A lengthy application process must take place before the sites can open.

The Works, on Victoria St. near Yonge-Dundas Square, is the busiest such site in the province.

With 3,804 recorded visits, May was the facility’s busiest-ever month, according to Toronto Public Health.