Data released Wednesday showed that drug overdoses killed moreover 100,000 people in the United States in 2021, as the Covid-19 outbreak compounded a crisis fueled by fentanyl and fake online medicines.

Experts say everyday life disruptions have been particularly harsh on persons with substance use disorders, while officials in Mexico are seizing record volumes of counterfeit and occasionally lethal pharmaceuticals.

Provisional data from the National Center for Health Statistics showed there were 107,622 deaths in the calendar year, an increase of 15 percent from 93,655 in 2020.

But there were signs that the explosion was tapering, with the 2021 increase half what it was a year ago. Overdose deaths rose 30 percent from 2019 to 2020.

Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid developed to treat the symptoms of chronic pain, was by far the biggest culprit, responsible for 71,238 deaths.

It was followed by crystal methamphetamine (meth), cocaine and natural opioids (such as heroin and morphine).

Last month, President Joe Biden’s administration announced a national drug control strategy to tackle the crisis focused on untreated addiction and trafficking.

Survey figures from 2020 showed that among the 41.1 million people who needed treatment for substance use disorders (SUD), only 2.7 million (6.5 percent) had received treatment at a specialty facility in the last year.

The administration wants to make life-saving therapies like naloxone, drug test strips, and syringe services more widely available.

To stop the flow of illegal substances, it has also requested a budget boost for border control and drug enforcement organizations.