Buprenorphine deaths did not increase despite wider access during pandemic, study shows

By Lev Facher

The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic led to a sea change in addiction medicine — in particular, increased access to buprenorphine, a drug commonly used to treat opioid use disorder.

Now, new data show that despite the medication’s wider availability, deaths involving buprenorphine still constitute a small fraction of overall drug mortality.