Onondaga County is seeking new tools to help drug users better detect if their substances are unknowingly laced with xylazine, a veterinary sedative that can cause breathing complications and skin ulcers in humans.
The White House declared the combination of xylazine and fentanyl a growing threatin the country. The sedative had appeared in a small but increasing number of Central New York deaths for years, but testing strips are only recently available.
Canada-based BTNX Inc. rolled its strips out just weeks ago, and already distributed at least 6,000 to harm reduction and treatment centers in Syracuse.
CEO Iqbal Sunderani said the company, which has a distribution location in Buffalo, is seeing a surge in interest since an independent report showed the strips worked well.
"Philadelphia, New York Health, Baltimore has contacted us. We've had several—I'm not absolutely sure how many health authorities have contacted us, but there's been numerous health authorities contacting us and in purchasing these tests from us," Sunderani said in a phone interview with WAER.
The Center for Forensic Science Research assessed the strips in a series of tests to find they were highly sensitive to detecting xylazine, and gave the devices high marks for specificity and precision.
Onondaga County is also planning to purchase the BTNX Inc. xylazine strips. Mariah Senecal-Reilly, the county's mental health and substance use initiative program coordinator, said they're moving forward after colleagues at New York City's health department analyzed the strips.
"We were waiting to see what their thoughts were on it, and it it was worth it—because they are significantly more expensive to fentanyl strips," Senecal-Reilly said.
BTNX Inc.'s fentanyl strips are $1 a piece, but xylazine ones are $3 each.
Sunderani said needed materials to produce the tests are so new and therefore costly, but he expects that to balance out as demand ramps up.
"Once the numbers goes up, the production cost comes down, and we'll pass on the savings to the harm reduction industry," he said.
While xylazine is a growing concern, medical officials warn fentanyl is still the more fatal substance. The county already makes fentanyl testing strips freely available.
