900% increase in blood infections likely due to opioids cut with animal tranquilizer, UVM Medical Center study finds
VTDigger
Monica Raymond, an infection preventionist at the University of Vermont Medical Center, said some of the wounds she sees are unlike anything she has seen before.
“Some of these are very extensive, even down to the bone,” said Raymond.
Two years ago, physicians at the UVM Medical Center began receiving more and more patients with searing, necrotic flesh wounds. Blood cultures turned up the same diagnosis: group A strep infections, referred to by the acronym ‘GAS’.
The wounds looked like the effects of xylazine, an animal sedative known on the streets as ‘tranq’, that dealers were already mixing with opioids. The drug causes necrotic wounds that serve as entry portals for bacteria. The Vermont Department of Health reported on the increasing role of xylazine in fatal opioid overdoses in the state in October 2021.