Mar. 5—Manchester's health director is asking aldermen to approve a new job classification for her department this week, so the city can soon begin deploying overdose prevention "strike teams."

Public Health Director Anna Thomas is asking for the addition of overdose prevention outreach workers, who will be hired and activated on a part-time hourly or per diem basis to provide "on-call rapid response services to overdose spikes and fatalities" as needed.

The positions are covered entirely by grant funding, Thomas said.

"The rapid response team model is something that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended to us based on best practices and what has worked in other communities across the country," Thomas said in an email.

According to Thomas, these overdose prevention outreach workers will be deployed on a per-diem basis as "strike teams" that will rapidly respond to overdose spikes and fatalities on an on-call basis, using a weekly hot spotting mapping and data dashboard created by the Manchester Police Department.

According to Thomas, the strike teams will:

—Conduct daily data-driven monitoring of hot-spots where multiple overdoses have occurred;

—Disseminate messaging of real-time overdose spike or fatality response alerts to the community at large;

—Activate rapid response teams comprised of multi-disciplinary providers, certified recovery support workers, case managers and those with "lived experience" in both substance use disorder and housing instability to flood the hot-spot areas with resources and quell the spikes;

—Deploy early morning, evening and weekend outreach collaboration to break down health inequity barriers and meet people where they are at in the community;

—And provide ongoing assistance to those struggling with addiction in navigating treatment and accessing services.

Thomas said local outreach efforts are expected to benefit from working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Association of City and County Health Officials and other partner cities to implement evidence-based overdose prevention strategies.

Thomas said her department is hosting a site visit later this week — March 8 and 9 — with the CDC, the National Association of City and Country Health Officials and a technical expert from New York City to discuss overdose prevention efforts in Manchester.

Members of the aldermanic Committee on Human Resources and Insurance will take up Thomas' request Tuesday at 6 p.m. at City Hall, before sending it to the full Board of Mayor and Aldermen later that same night for approval.

Last month, Manchester health officials reported a spike in overdose deaths in the Queen City, with police responding to seven suspected drug-related fatalities in a 48-hour window.

Of those fatalities, three were homeless individuals, three were housed and one was found in a hotel, according to Andrew Warner, Manchester's director of overdose prevention.

Both Manchester and Nashua experienced jumps in the total number of opioid-related deaths in 2022, statistics released in January by American Medical Response (AMR) show.

AMR crews responded to 701 suspected opioid overdoses in Manchester last year, a 22% increase over 2021. There were 79 opioid-related deaths in the Queen City, a 41% increase from the prior year.

In Nashua, AMR data show a 15% decrease in suspected opioid overdoses in 2022, while the number of deaths increased by 37%.

While the cause of the recent spike in fatal overdoses is unknown, the Department of Safety recently issued a warning about xylazine, an animal sedative detected in a number of overdose deaths.

The New Hampshire Harm Reduction Coalition (NHHRC), which operates weekly harm reduction and street outreach programs in Concord, Manchester, Rochester, Dover and Somersworth, has begun deploying the state's first Overdose Prevention Van, fully equipped with harm reduction supplies.

In 2022, participants of NHHRC programing reported reversing 1,459 drug overdoses statewide. The group hopes the Overdose Prevention Van will help NHHRC reach more people in cities like Manchester, where a need for harm reduction practices exists.

The van is equipped with overdose prevention supplies like naloxone, fentanyl test strips, kits for the prevention of wounds and infection transmission, as well as syringe disposal options, all free of charge.

The Overdose Prevention Van rolls out as New Hampshire has seen a 8.48% increase in overdose deaths between 2019 and 2022, according to recent data from the state Office of Chief Medical Examiner.