First aid courses encouraged to include life-saving naloxone training

Burnet Institute has welcomed updated resuscitation guidelines that will strengthen Australia’s response to opioid overdose and help save lives.

The Australian and New Zealand Committee on Resuscitation (ANZCOR) has revised its First Aid Management of Suspected Opioid Overdose guideline to recommend intranasal naloxone be administered in suspected opioid overdose cases.

Naloxone is a medication that can rapidly reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.

It is now recommended that all first aid courses across Australia should include training on how to use intranasal naloxone. This change applies to all first aid providers and trained first aiders.

Professor Paul Dietze, Burnet program director of Disease Elimination, said the changes come at a critical time.

“With so many people first aid trained, the potential impact is enormous,” he said.

This month, the Coroners Court of Victoria shared that the state recorded its highest number of fatal overdoses in a decade in 2024.

Latest data from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre found just under 1,000 opioid-related drug overdose deaths in 2023, accounting for more than half of all illicit drug deaths in Australia.

Expanding access to naloxone and making it easier for people to use in an emergency are essential steps in reducing these preventable deaths.

Finlay Macneil, convenor of the ANZCOR First Aid subcommittee, said opioid overdoses can be survived with CPR and intranasal naloxone.

“Anyone can learn. Contact your local first aid trainer and ask how,” he said.

Today, on 31 August, is International Overdose Awareness Day, the world’s largest annual campaign to raise awareness and take collective action against overdose.