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PARKERSBURG — The Mid-Ohio Valley Health Department issued an overdose alert for Wood County on Tuesday.

“In the past 24 hours, four suspected overdoses have been reported in Wood County, according to law enforcement and EMS via ODMAP (Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program),” the health department’s post on its Facebook page said Tuesday.

“Substances involved include heroin, fentanyl, prescription drugs and one unknown.

“We urge anyone using illicit substances to use extreme caution.”

Malcolm Lanham, Community Health and Threat Preparedness Director for the MOVHD, said they issue these alerts as an information sharing effort to let the community know there is something happening in the local community.

If the overdoses were all one particular drug then there could be a bad batch coming through the area and they would want the public made aware of that, Lanham said.

As for the overdoses the area is seeing, he said there is a spike in the number of overdoses. An alert is issued if the area has three or more overdoses within a 24-hour period, he said.

“I was told (Tuesday) morning there had been four within a 24-hour period,” Lanham said. “This time it wasn’t one specific drug being used.

The health department gets alerts from Ohio if a bad batch of drugs are going through the Columbus, Cleveland or other areas in the state.

“We usually will see it in our area within two-three-four days,” Lanham said. “We will share that information. We have gotten one of those within the last three months.”

The spike alerts for Wood County on drug activity happen more often with the last one happening about two weeks ago on May 12-13 and before that was April 30-May 1 where there were three overdoses then, he said.

Parkersburg Police Chief Matthew Board said they did not see the four overdoses over the weekend, but said it could have been handled by other local law enforcement agencies. Emergency medical services also contribute to ODMAP.

“We have had six for the entire month,” Board said, including one May 21 and one May 26 and the others were during the first part of the month.

“We have not seen an influx in the last 24 hours within the city of Parkersburg,” Board said. “With those warnings we do keep a watchful eye for trends and patterns like that and take any action that we feel would be necessary or assist in curbing that.”

He reiterated that an increase in overdoses can mean a higher grade of drugs could be entering the area or the drugs could be contaminated with other things.

“I encourage everyone to be cautious and urge anyone if they see drug paraphernalia laying on the ground, don’t touch it and call the police or who they think can remedy it,” Board said. “Act out of an abundance of caution.”

The MOVHD offers free Naloxone (Narcan) and training to help prevent overdose deaths. For more information, people can call 304-485-7374.

Officials with the Washington County Sheriff’s Department, the Marietta Police Department and the Washington County Health Department could not be reached for comment Tuesday if there were any overdoses in Washington County during the same period.

Brett Dunlap can be reached at bdunlap@newsandsentinel.com